My father was a SeaBee in WWII in the Pacific. He was an aerial photographer who took pics of island invasions while they were taking place. After the war he went into government service, eventually rising to head of the visual department of the U.S. State Department. He took pics of many visiting dignitaries, treaty signings, etc. I have some sweet pics of the Bikini atoll H- bomb tests(picture a cruiser getting swept UP into the stem of the mushroom cloud), as well as signed pics of JFK and Jackie, as well as Hull and a few others. The best souvenir though is one of the original seven copies of the Declaration of War with Japan, that rests on my mother's living room wall.

A few years after his passing I was watching the History channel and got a glimpse of him in an old newsreel when the shot panned accross the press gallery at National Airport during a visit by a foreign head of state. There he was in the front row.


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WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

Good story.

Welcome abooard Kaleun CrushDepthCarl http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif

You've obviously got some excellent keepsakes there http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

My grandfather was initially trained as a medic and assigned to be deployed to Italy. The night before he shipped out, however, he came down with a kidney stone. As a result, he was reassigned to an army hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

My great-uncle, Tech5 Don Most, fought with the 100th division in Europe. He was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart in the push through France. He spent some time in occupied Germany and survived the war but after getting home was clipped by a drunk driver and killed while on his motorcycle in 1947. His father (my great-grandfather) fought in World War I as a new immigrant from Russia attaining the rank of corporal and earning his citizenship through service in the Army.

That must have been a great moment for you and your family. Don't forget to insure that document . . . and have you thought of having it professionally preserved so that way it doesn't begin to deteriate more then it probably already has? Loaning it to a museum?