As veterans are aging time is running out to document their stories and honor them once more for their service. At a meeting of the 2nd Cup Veterans Group at the King Senior Center four veterans were recognized for their participation in the events surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Paula Hall, director of the King Senior Center, said she is happy that these veterans were given recognition for their service during a critical incident in American history that is not very well understood.
In October, Commander David Taylor or The Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH) Chapter #0638 presented embroidered caps to Don Overby (Air Force), Mike Cassio (Army), Mack White (Army), and Russell Brown (Navy) at the 2nd Cup Veterans Breakfast in King to honor their service during the Cuban Missile Crisis, she said.
Taylor has remained active with the military in his post service years in The Military Order of the Purple Heart and as a member of Disabled Veterans of America (Chapter 9), and American Legion Post 290. Keeping involved in these groups means he is well connected with other veterans in the area.
He expressed concerned that the dwindling number of living veterans means that their stories may pass along with them. Already his chapter of The Military Order of the Purple Heart has had to merge with other local branches as there are not always enough remaining veterans to conduct ceremonies with honors. They have had consolidated their membership and Chapter 638 now encompasses 15 counties, including Surry and Stokes counties.
Sixty years ago, on Oct. 26, 1962, President Kennedy raised military the military readiness to DEFCON-2. Hall said of those days, “For 35 days in the fall of 1962, conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated to what is known as The Cuban Missile Crisis.”
“The United States went to DEFCON-2 (Defense Readiness Condition), an alert system status that was just one level shy of the most severe status.”
Taylor said people may not remember just how dire the situation was and that “the guns were loaded” on American naval vessels that needed only a command and would have opened fire. He said of the local vets that they “could see the Russians on the beach, that’s how close they were.”
The naval blockade of Cuba and the defensive posture of the United States caused Russia to blink and withdraw their missiles from the island a scant 90 miles from the tip of Florida. For those 35 days the cold war reached its highest simmering point of the decades long conflict Taylor said, “It was as close as it could have gotten.”
The cold war ended, and Gulf Wars and a War of Terror followed in the years since, but Taylor has remained ever ready. He remains on guard to help his fellow veterans, but he knows how the story ends so often already. “I hear it all the time, vets will call and ask for help. They say they are sick or are in need of some assistance and I ask them, ‘Are you in the Legion, VFW, have you signed up for Veterans Administration benefits?’ and so many of them say no,” Taylor said with a shake of his head. “I just ask myself ‘why not’?”
“Don’t wait until the last minute, there are people who are ready to help now,” he said referring to local veteran’s service officers like Mike Scott. He said it is the duty and honor of these officers to help veterans find and apply for the benefits they have earned. “The V.A. isn’t going to come knocking at your door you know.”
Taylor is calling for veterans of all ranks, branch, or dates of service to consider joining one of the veterans’ groups as there is strength in numbers. These veterans’ groups need members for as has been noted, participation in just about everything has dropped off. This was true even before the pandemic kept folks on lockdown and gatherings were halted.
When he advocates for veterans rights and goes to visit a politician, he said arriving with a hundred vets gets you a hello but with a thousand and they “may open the door.’ With ten thousand veterans standing, metaphorically, shoulder to shoulder it becomes harder to ignore their needs of the brave men and women who served.
One groups at the highest risk for COVID-19 are the elderly, and Taylor recalls not being able to take a commemorative service baseball cap to a veteran.
A Vietnam veteran in the Charlotte area had his service cap stolen and so Taylor picked up the phone to order two replacements, but isolation protocols meant he couldn’t deliver the two caps, one is white and to be worn on Sundays and the black cap the rest of the week.
“The wife told me after that there was no way she could fully express her husband’s gratitude,” he said. It meant something to the vet and his wife that a fellow comrade in arms was still watching his six, and Taylor said that is nothing new.
Their conduct on the battlefield is mirrored in their dedication to each other after exiting the service: they leave no man or woman behind.
At times, the Veterans Administration has fallen short in the care and comfort of the veterans of the United States and when that happens groups like The Military Order of the Purple Heart, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Disabled Veterans of America pick up the slack, “In the end, its veterans helping veterans,” Taylor said of the bonds between America’s veterans and the oath they took.
“Recognition of our veterans is very important to all of us,” Hall of the senior center said noting a growing population of seniors in Stokes County and surrounding areas that she wants to make sure stay connected.
For more information contact: Surry County Veterans Services contact: Mike Scott, U.S. Navy (Ret.), 336 783-8820
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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