Although I'm retired (2006), I work at a base that has a Chief Petty Officers Association and I remain affiliated with it as much as possible.
We held a WWII Victory Dance and Celebration at our base gym, this is our third year, and we have opened it up to Korean War and Vietnam Vets as well. It started about 1500, with cocktails and hors de orves (0$ to vets and their families, War Widows included as well).
We had a DJ (one of the chiefs) with a good set of music all the way back to the twenties (that "Minnie the Moocher" is bad@ss!!), I helped out a little bit in the kitchen and bar (not much, because I was also the MC) and my wife, also a veteran (where do you suppose I met her?) came and helped out as a drink fetcher (seems drink fetchers are right well thought of
).
We had our base Honor Guard perform Parade the Colors and at the posting of the colors, the National Anthem. It chokes me up to hear those little ole ladies sing with the anthem, it sort of reminds me that back then, they didn't know for sure that we (the USA) would come out of this all right, but they had heart and to a man-jack, all of them were in it, not like today, we're at the mall, while our sons and daughters are out on the line for us, keeping terrorists at arms length, rather then fighting them on our streets.
Then, one of the Chiefs did the presentation of the meaning of the POW/MIA Table (google that some time) Anyhow, we fed them, my boss who also owns a bar and restaurant, volunteered to help with all the cooking. We served Ham, Greens, Green beans, Chicken and Dumplings, Mac and Cheese and all totally homemade desserts (to DIE for!!!)
One of the Chiefs put together a power point presentation which featured pictures from the wars, from WWII thru Afghanistan, accompanied with music popular in that era, Hendrix's "All along the Watch Tower" for Vietnam, etc...
Then, after supper, dancing (dem ole folks wasa cuttin' a rug, lemme tells ya now!!) and at 1830, we had a guest speaker. We had a tough time finding a guest speaker this year, but I pointed out that if he could do it, one of my brother Chiefs stationed here was on the Cole when they were attacked in Aden Harbor, Yemen. He was about 35 feet from the blast and was wounded pretty good, lost a bunch of shipmates, brothers. It was hard for him to tell, but it (I thought) served to remind those out there in the audiance (about 80+) that we are still out there, and very much at war with a hidious enemy, even on that very night.
We wrapped up around 2030, everyone told us what a great time they had, and that made me (us) feel really, really good. Several of them wanted to make donations to our Chief's association, we told them that they had given enough....
R/
OMC
