For Jonathan “Jay” Tunney’s eighth birthday, he went to see his favorite performer, Roy Rogers, at Madison Square Garden, which in and of itself wasn’t that unusual for a kid in the early 1940s. What was unusual was that during the show, Roy stopped to point out Jay’s dad in the audience, and the crowd started cheering.
When Ronald “Ron” Parker was drafted into the Army he was assigned to the infantry. He said he loved being an infantryman, even when he served in Vietnam. So much so that when he became an officer with other options available, he asked to be assigned to the infantry.
One of Shelley Morrison's earliest pictures shows a chubby-cheeked infant in overalls sitting on a sofa clutching her father’s white Navy hat with both hands as it sits precariously on her little head. Her father was a Navy lifer. It was the life she wanted for herself.
Airman Bob Rein is onboard a WC-135B weather ship as it skims over the polar ice cap at 5,000 feet. Too fast and high to see polar bears. Collecting air samples from Chinese and Russian nuclear tests is today’s mission.
Larry Nazimek comes from a long line of veterans. His grandfather served in World War I. His father and uncle both served in World War II. His childhood goal was to fly. Even as a small boy in the sandbox, he had his eyes on the planes flying overhead.
Ron Miller was born and raised in East Chicago, IN. While in the third grade, tragedy struck the family when their house caught fire and burned to the ground. Ron’s mother was a single mom with three young children.
Doug Ermel was born December 31, 1948, and narrowly missed being Chicago’s first child of the New Year by a couple of hours. That timing quirk brought his family luck and set the tone years later during his experiences in Vietnam.