And I Kissed Him - Pearl Harbor

Thank you for the song share brother Kerry.

TSgt Tim (lj) Littlejohn SFC James Shanks Sgt Kristina Snell SGT Everett Bickford SSgt Harvey "Skip" Porter SGT Shannon Weaver Logan SSgt Clare May SSG William Jones SGT John " Mac " McConnell Sgt Kelli Mays SGT James Murphy PO1 Tony Holland Capt (Join to see) SrA Elizabeth Fontenot military-family SPC Woody Bullard CW4 Craig Urban SP5 Billy Mullins SPC Michael Oles SR

This film gets mixed reviews, but it's always had very personal connotations for me. My grandfather, 2LT Percy "Buddy" Baker was a kid from Maine who loved to fly...especially barnstorming his mother while putting out the laundry. He enlisted after Pearl Harbor and was quickly placed into aviation cadet training based on his prior experience. While training, he was stationed in Tennessee at a small field (that no longer exists), and while there...met a young farmer's daughter named Delores. He shipped off to the Pacific to fly B-25s without seeing the little boy who would become my father. At twenty-four, "Buddy" met his end, having nearly finished his tour. Before he died, he wrote to his sisters, asking them to care for Delores and the baby if he didn't make it home...instead, they met her at the tracks and sent her back to Tennessee where Dad would grow up with another man's name, and no knowledge of his real father. Some thirty years later, my father took his little boy to Maine...I met my great-grandfather, a true horse-Cavalryman. He took us to the family church and publicly stated, "This is Buddy's son...and my great grandson". To his dying day, he never let his daughters forget how much time they had cost him with his son's family. Fast forward another decade or so, and I took off for the first time in a Navy trainer from NAS Pensacola. My roommate and best friend was a kid from Idaho who also loved to fly. Ultimately, I didn't have what it took...and went on to drive ships and later, Humvees in Afghanistan. One day, while visiting my friend, then a winged aviator...we watched this film. Throughout the Academy, we had been close, and often promised we'd do our best to get the same bird and squadron when the time came. Watching the two characters, it was easy to become emotional. My friend, "Tater" looked at me and said, "Don't worry Diz...you were just born a little late; they didn't need all that fancy math back then, and you're a good stick". Meant a lot coming from him. A few years later, I was standing by my friend's coffin. I've buried other friends who went on to slip the surly bounds of earth, and reach out their hands towards God. It may sound dramatic, but I went to Afghanistan trying to in some way "earn" the right to call myself the friend of such brave men, and the grandson of one of their own. Hopefully, I've in some small way, done that.