Simple Things

OAFS Photo

So the Sunday after my knee gave out, The Missus Herself went off to church, after making sure I was reasonably comfortable and somewhat mobile. The knee was still pretty sore, pretty uncooperative, so I was okay with staying home.

When she came back from church, she had those flowers in the opening photo. Seems one of the ladies at the church thought I'd appreciate the gesture of getting flowers.

Surprisingly enough, I did appreciate it, far more than I ever expected.

As you can see, they were very pretty flowers, and since the lady had put them in a simple green bottle it kinda made it even more special. Nothing fancy, just an old green bottle and some lovely flowers.

Who says a guy can't appreciate getting flowers? First time for me, I liked it.

A lot.

Big day on Thursday. Trash day, got my lawn mowed, an order of socks, vitamins, and coffee arrived on the doorstep, a real banner day. As I get older I'm starting to appreciate the little things.

If you'd told me when I was a kid that someday I'd get excited over getting new socks, I would've thought you were crazy. But here we are.

Might not be living large, but I'm living comfortably.

Supposed to be a nor'easter rolling in this weekend. Oh boy, good thing I have those new books in case the power goes out.

Now where did I leave those candles?*

* Just kidding, I know exactly where they are, and the thing we use to light them.

Major William Leaverette

 

Source **

 

Ok, folks, this post is a little bit different than most of my post lately.  If you look closely at the picture above, you'll see something missing.  Very good eyes if you notice no Medal of Honor ribbon on him.  Nope, his highest medal was the Distinguished Service Cross.  I'll add to this comment a bit later in the post.

Source

 

 

In any case, Major Leaverette was flying P-38's in the Mediterranean Theater in WWII.  His mission on this day was to provide Air Cover for a Convoy sailing near Rhodes Greece.  He had taken off with 9 airplanes, but two had engine problems and returned to base.  He arrived overhead the convoy about noon and noticed that a formation of 25 Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers were approaching.  The convoy had already been attacked before their arrival and there were some damaged ships.  

Major Leaverette split his formation sending 4 of the aircraft to maintain air cover for the convoy while he attacked the bomber formation;.

In the space of  15 minutes of combat, Major Leaverette shot down 7 Stukas with a probable 8th.  This site has an excellent set of drawings showing the flow of the battle.  The picture below is just one of many.

Yes, Beans, I've spent a lot of time on that site. 

Source

 

In any case, he got to paint several Nazi flags on the nose of his Lightning.  Yes, Beans, he got an additional kill a couple of days later. 

 

A kill's a Kill!

Source

 For the mission detailed above,  he received the Distinguished Service Cross.  In his career, he also received a Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leave cluster and an Air Medal with 19 oak leaf clusters.  Interestingly, another pilot shortly afterward had a very similar mission with similar victories and received the Medal of Honor, more to follow on that one.

I thought that interesting. 

Peace out all y'all! 

** This guy was a REAL fighter pilot.  How do I know.  Look at his "official' photograph, look at the marks on the side of his mouth.  Those are Oxygen Mask marks.  He went to take his official photograph almost immediately after flying a mission wearing his Oxygen mask. Gotta' love him!

juvat 

Sources:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_L._Leverette

https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient/recipient-22923/ 

https://grokipedia.com/page/william_l_leverette 

https://warhistory.org/article/william-leverette 

Excellent air to air diagram:  https://www.ww2wrecks.com/portfolio/dogfight-over-the-aegean-the-leverette-report-illustrated-p-38-lightnings-against-ju-87-stukas-on-9-october-1943/ 

Picture  URL https://acceptance.historynet.com/slaughter-of-the-stukas-ace-in-a-day-p-38-pilot/standing by P-38 

https://www.valka.czattachments/35946/2693339_9eb8a548f708f3ce1af26cbbdc562e10.jpg 

8 victories https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PKgAAOSwvNhoCREx/s-l400.jpg 

 

Kryptonite and Other Things

OAFS Photo

"You're going to turn into an English muffin if that's all you eat!"

Wise words from a friend of mine ...

The last time I was on my own for a spell I ate a lot of English muffins. For breakfast with butter and jelly, sometimes peanut butter and jelly. For variety I used different types of jelly. (For the record I avoid jam, many jams have seeds, seeds are something I cannot abide. Well, I can abide it, my colon cannot.)

For supper I'd do an English muffin sandwich, sometimes two. A toasted muffin with meat and cheese and mayo. For variety, I'd change up the meat and often the cheese. (Though I'm mighty partial to cheddar, so it was only the type of cheddar that would vary. And that was between New York and Vermont cheddar, haven't gotten around to Wisconsin cheddar yet. Damnit I wish the Badger was still around to advise me on that cheese choice.)

My friend then hit me with that phrase above. So yeah, I had to change things up, I don't eat nearly as many English muffins as I did before. So I didn't turn into an English muffin after all. My friend saved me from that fate!

In the local supermarket not too long ago I saw those things depicted above.

Apple fritters? Yup, big fan. Used to get them in the fall at my old gig, Matt made them well. When I saw these in the store, I thought, "Well, why not, if they suck I won't buy anymore."

Well, they did not suck. Thing is though, way too much sugar. So I've had to dial that back a bit. Right now breakfast (unless it's with Liz and Tom) is a bagel and a cup of joe. That's it.

They call 'em apple fritters, I call 'em Sarge's Kryptonite.

Speaking of breakfast ...

Tuesday was the "up at the crack of dawn, eat breakfast, drink coffee, shower, then take Blue in to the dealership for some recall work" adventure. I had envisioned myself being stuck at the dealership for most of the day waiting as they won't deliver me off-island (too far) and everyone I know was either working or in Korea. Or living in another state ...

Turns out though that it only took about four hours and the dealership was kind enough to cart me across the street to Barnes and Noble. (Convenient of them to put a store near my dealership, innit?) Where I spent the morning perusing literature and having more coffee, there's a Starbucks inside the store, nice. (No whinging about Starbucks coffee, yes it's expensive and many of you don't like the taste. Personally I do, kinda reminds me of how they drink coffee in Germany, strong and kinda burnt.)

I was home shortly after noon which was much better than I expected. So I did a lot of whinging all for naught. Sigh ...

But I did pick up two good books by James Holland on the campaign in Italy during World War II ...

Source

Yes, there are two more he wrote, one in Sicily and one in northern Italy near the end of the campaign, those weren't in stock so ...

"Hi, Amazon?"

So all in all, a pretty decent day.

Pssstt, don't tell The Missus Herself that I bought more books. Thanks ...

Frederick W. Castle MOH

 Ok, a bit sorry. I got a bit wrapped up in things of the here and now and not WWII history. So...This is a bit short.

Talk about fast promotion.  Took me 20 years to go from 2Lt to LtCol.  Look at how it went in WWII.
 

Pinning on BG rank 

In June 1942, he was a Captain, in November, 1944 he was promoted to Brigadier General. World War tends to accelerate promotions.

 

 

On Christmas Ever 1944, he was co-piloting the Lead Bomber. 
 

 

 Unfortunately...

 

In addition to the Medal of honor, his other decorations include the Distinguished Service Cross, Legion of Merit, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, four Air Medals and the Purple Heart. 

 Medal of Honor Citation

CITATION:

         “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 487th Bombardment Group (H), 4th Bombardment Wing, Eighth Air Force.

Brigadier General Castle was air commander and leader of more than 2,000 heavy bombers in a strike against German airfields on 24 December 1944. En route to the target, the failure of one engine forced him to relinquish his place at the head of the formation. In order not to endanger friendly troops on the ground below, he refused to jettison his bombs to gain speed and maneuverability. His lagging, unescorted aircraft became the target of numerous enemy fighters which ripped the left wing with cannon shells, set the oxygen system afire, and wounded two members of the crew. Repeated attacks started fires in two engines, leaving the Flying Fortress in imminent danger of exploding. Realizing the hopelessness of the situation, the bail-out order was given. Without regard for his personal safety he gallantly remained alone at the controls to afford all other crewmembers an opportunity to escape. Still another attack exploded gasoline tanks in the right wing, and the bomber plunged earthward, carrying General Castle to his death. His intrepidity and willing sacrifice of his life to save members of the crew were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service.”

/s/ HARRY S. TRUMAN

 

 

 Sources

 https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/24-december-1944/

https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/frederick-w-castle 

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/people_details.php?PeopleID=27166  good quote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Walker_Castle  

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/108537/brigadier-general-frederick-w-castle/ 

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/24-december-1944/ 

 

Night Falls

OAFS Photo

As another day at Chez Sarge slides into the record books I realize that I absolutely hate being alone. On the gripping hand, I'm very particular about who I hang out with. We must have something in common, some shared experience. My immediate family, wife and kids, and by extension the kids spouses and kids, fall into that category. We share much more than just DNA.

I also have a couple of friends who fall into that category, they are family to me without sharing a single strand of DNA. We went through things together which somehow bonded us. At least that's how I feel. Our monthly breakfasts together are precious to me, they're the only people I'm not related to that I don't mind getting up early for.

So being on my own? There are times that it's all right, like when the sun is shining and the birds are singing. In the still of the night, I abhor this solitary existence.

And one other thing, I miss my cats, they were great company. As to getting more cats?

I'm working on that. Sort of ...

Chant du Départ Screenshot

Juvat pointed this out to me in a comment yesterday, make no mistake, I look at the numbers every day. I might even believe them some of the time.

Having been doing this since March of 2012, fourteen years to save you from having to do the math, it's not a real big surprise that we've had that many "hits" on the blog. But I assure you, I don't for a minute think that those are all legitimate visits.

Here's a graph of the numbers over time ...

Chant du Départ Screenshot

As you can see, most of the hits have come over the past year and a half. I see no reason to see how the Chant has somehow become so popular. It's more likely that Blogger's algorithm for counting these numbers is faulty. It's settled down to more reasonable levels lately, as the graph for the last year shows ...

Chant du Départ Screenshot

There are a number of huge spikes since October of last year, I often wondered how 150,000 people could visit the blog in one day, yet the hits on the individual posts, even over the past week, don't amount to nearly that much. It's either spambots or Blogger is really bad at counting.

It's all the same to me. I know actual people read what we write here and I'm okay with just a few people a day visiting us. As long as they leave comments, even just one or two, then I can justify carrying on. Until that day when I either run out of material, which has to be things I WANT to write about as opposed to things I CAN write about (big difference between those two categories), or I just get tired of doing this every day. Nothing lasts forever.

Anyhoo, time marches on. As for me, I'm going to bed, have to bring Blue in early on Tuesday (today as you're reading this) for some recall thing. And you all know how much I love getting up early.

Sigh ...

House Update #3?

 Well, Campers,  a bit of an update on projects and events down here in the Lone Star State.

This was where my Brother's house was left off on our last update.  The "Guys" have been working pretty hard.

The roof is being sealed, siding support is being added.  Quite a bit of progress, there.  Although it may not look like it.

As I said. Quite a bit of progress.

On the other "in progress" project, the Horse Barn.   

As you can see the walls and roof are in.  The stall frames have been delivered, and are next for installation.  Doors and gates should be installed shortly thereafter.  Three remaining important projects still needed are Water, Electricity and Fencing.  Then we can free our horses from their current abode.  (Dusty dirt in their pen, they get to run free in a larger pasture, with grass, a couple of nights a week.  They're looking forward to wandering and grazing at their discretion.)

But....

No progress so far on our house.  The framers are still on my brother's house and will start on ours when finished.  Hopefully, soon.

The builder is still optimistic about a December completion.  We hope so.

Peace out y'all! 

The Last Days of Summer

OAFS Photo

Autumn has arrived, weather-wise. According to the calendar, not yet, but who cares? The air has a hint of cold in it, the sun shines differently, and the nights are in the 50s.

I love this time of year.

A friend of mine once called these days Septober, it rings true to me. We miss you Scott, you old badger you. 'Tis from him I first heard that phrase. Now he's gone, like so many others I have known over the years. Thinking of Doug, a colleague from the old job, gone too soon as well.

We lost a cherished dog this year, a dear friend lost her cherished cat. It all comes to an end one day.

But not yet, I pray.

I love the smell of fall, almost as much as that of spring. Those who know, know. Perhaps it's a northern thing, where the seasons are so well defined. I know that Okinawa experienced no such thing, having lived there for two and a half years. There it's either hot or it's raining, sometimes both. The winter has a chill, but nothing like that in the North.

Another season passes by, another approaches. I will enjoy them all, while I can.

Please, do the same.

It's all good.

Have a nice Sunday.

I have no idea where the Muse has gotten to, perhaps traveling in Korea with The Missus Herself, perhaps she tires of this old man. I seem to have no stories left. Maybe I just need to relax and see if they come back. If not, well, it was a good run. I don't think I'm done yet, but only time will tell.