Posted on Sep 10, 2014
Does your family have a history of military service?
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While doing some research for an interview I had with LA Times on families with military history, I found that I have rumored 7 generations of family members with military service with 5 confirmed generations stretching back to World War I. To include service in every major conflict until today. Has anyone else on this site ever researched or found an old uniform that tied your service with an ancestor. Does this change or did it form your reason for service to this great nation?
Posted >1 y ago
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I am descended from men who fought in the American revolution; the civil war; the first and second world wars; Korea, and Vietnam. I served during the Cold War, and my brother in the first gulf war. Now my young nephew is a staff sergeant in the Army.
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Like any other immigrant family that has been 360 years here in a rather tempestuous part of the world, we have a few exemplars.
Captain John Peck Rathbun: was John Paul Jones's First Mate, later commanded the unit that took the English garrison at Nassau.
Major Henry Reed Rathbone (pictured): wounded by John Wilkes Booth while trying to prevent the assassination of Lincoln.
Captain John Peck Rathbun: was John Paul Jones's First Mate, later commanded the unit that took the English garrison at Nassau.
Major Henry Reed Rathbone (pictured): wounded by John Wilkes Booth while trying to prevent the assassination of Lincoln.
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My family has had a Soldier or Marine in service to this country since the Civil War. (Well, in the case of the Civil War, in service to a traitorous regime.) Every generation has had at least one member serving. I'm proud to carry on that tradition, and I am honored to be the first officer in the family. My grand father, a retired Army NCO, was so proud of me on my commissioning day that he kept repeating, "You're going to be a somebody in this man's Army. Yes, Sir, you're going to be a somebody!" Very cool
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