Not Tarawa.

 So, Wednesday I ran a post that contained this picture.

Source

It contained the caption "Tarawa.  The US cleverly planned on invading at low tide (shown). Tide was so low the landing craft couldn't make it even to the beach.  The Marines had to wade almost a mile to shore.  The Japanese had machine gun emplacements all the way around the lagoon.  I knew a man that was in that invasion.  He wouldn't talk about it."

I made a mistake there.  It's all correct except the next to the last sentence.  I just found out the man I knew wasn't in the invasion of Tarawa.  Here, as Paul Harvey used to say is "The rest of the story".

When Mrs. J and I retired from the Air Force and moved to the 'Burg, we bought a wine store and sold Texas wines.  There weren't a lot of Texas wineries in the entire state, and 5 of them (Bell Mountain Vineyard, Sister Creek Vineyard, Grape Creek Vineyard, Becker Vineyard and Texas Hills Winery) were within 30 miles of us.  At the time, the large distributors didn't see much market for Texas Wines other than Messina Hof in Bryan/College Station and Llano Estacado in Lubbock.  Given that, I would regularly go and pick up wine from the above mentioned wineries to stock our store.  As such, I got to be good friends with the owners and staff of each.  

To be frank in all but Becker Vineyard, the owners WERE the staff or at least part of it.  It was a pretty symbiotic relationship that developed.  The distributors wouldn't stock their wine so it was hard for them to get traffic and be able to sell their wine.  It was hard for us to have unique Texas wine in stock to sell and we were on Main St in the 'Burg, so we got a LOT of traffic. So, win/win.

This went on for a year or so then, Mrs. J got a good Idea.  "Juvat, why don't we start a tour company and offer tours to the local wineries?"  Win/Win/Win. The wineries got more traffic, we made more money, the customers could taste/drink wine without concern for driving.  A good deal all round.

So, it's a Saturday morning and I'm picking up my tour group.  I've got my "uniform" on. A white polo shirt with a red& blue collar for color.  Pick them up at their quarters and give a short intro, my name, the wineries we're going to (all 5, but no word that that's all that are available, salesmanship doncha know) and the order we'll visit in.  There were 3 couples all in their mid 20's. Nice, enthusiastic and fun.  This is going to be easy.

First up will be Grape Creek vineyard.  Grape Creek at the time was owned by Ned and Nel Simes (pronounced Sims).  Great folks in their late '70's.  IMHO, they made one of the best Merlot's I have ever tasted.  Ned and I kinda hit it off as we had both been in the military.  Given his age at the time, I could surmise that he'd probably served in WWII. He was pretty circumspect, but he did say he'd been in the Marines.

However, I could tell that he didn't put up with a lot of BS.  Which I always respect.

So, we've arrived at Grape Creek and I'm giving my short spiel about the owner, types of wine and recommendations for tasting.  I mention that Grape Creek's Merlot was one of the finest I'd ever had and they should try it.

As you may suspect, I am on the cusp of learning a VERY important lesson.

So we enter the winery, there are no other customers, so Ned comes out and meets and greets.  He asks what wines they'd like to try.  Based on my recommendation they all said "Merlot".  Ned pours the six tastes + one for himself.  He's swirling and sniffing and discussing what he smells.  In other words, educating the guests on wine as well as doing a bit of salesmanship.  

Having completed that, he pushes the tasting glasses to the guests.  I'm standing next to one of the ladies as she swirls, sniffs and takes a big taste.

Then promptly spits it out, unfortunately and with uncommon accuracy, all over my once white shirt., while saying, in a loud Voice, "This is the WORST wine I have ever tasted in My LIFE.!"

My jaw drops.  I happen to glance at Ned and hope to never see a face like that again.  At that point, I knew exactly what a Marine in Combat in WWII looked like.  As to my guests, they recognized that their friend may have committed a bit of a Faux Pas. So we beat a hasty retreat to the Limo where I asked: "What the heck was that?"  I'm pretty sure, but not positive that was what I said.  It might have been a bit stronger.

The young lady said "That was my first taste of red wine.  I like sweet wines like Boone's Farm."

As I said, I learned a big lesson that I need to find out my guests preferences in wine before taking them to the wineries.  So, I took them home, refunded their money, changed out of my uniform and drove back out to the winery to make amends.  Ned had had time to cool off, as I came in and apologized and explained the situation.  He laughed, said OK and that he'd also add a bit of an interview to his spiel.  I later had an opportunity to talk to Nel, his wife.  I told her about the look.  She got very quiet and said that during the war, he'd been in on a few invasions, but had had a particularly hard time on an island she couldn't remember but that it started with a T.  The only one I could remember like that was Tarawa.  She said she thought that was it, but said it would be better if I didn't ask as he didn't like to talk about it.

So.  I thought it was Tarawa.  Ned passed away in 2004 and the Winery was sold in 2006.  I got to thinking about him as we passed the winery on our way to CStat earlier this week and decided I'd do a little googling.  Come to find out that the National Museum of the Pacific War, locally known as the Nimitz Museum, had interviewed Ned in 2002 about his experience in the Pacific.  The Transcript Entry Point is Here.  It's a little tricky to navigate, but in the top right is a download button.  Click that and the transcript will appear with arrows to switch pages.

I think the question marks contained therein were words that shouldn't be seen by children, but that was very much Ned.  

 

Source

And the T island?  Tinian, he was also in on the Saipan invasion and served time on Guadalcanal.  All three were very much the antithesis of a "Walk in the Park".  But reading that brought Ned back for a bit and gave me an inkling of what it was like.  

The Nimitz Museum is a National Treasure.  You should visit it if you get the chance.

Peace out Y'all!

P.S.  The wine industry is going gangbusters down here nowadays.  There are close to a hundred wineries within my old wine tour route.  There are also several dozen tour companies.