Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
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Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
The Extraordinary Life of Dennis Flynn: From Youthful Escapades to Military Heroism and Beyond
What if a single lifetime could encapsulate decades of service, adventure, and personal growth? Meet Dennis Flynn, a man whose extraordinary journey from a mischievous childhood in Royal Oak, Michigan, to a life of dedication in the Navy and Air Force, will leave you inspired. Dennis shares uproarious tales of his youthful escapades, like jumping off a garage roof with a bed sheet and pretending to be stuck in a clothes chute, painting a vivid picture of the familial dynamics that shaped him. His school days, filled with both trouble and triumphs, set the stage for an adulthood marked by resilience and leadership.
As Dennis recounts his military career, we explore his experiences aboard the USS Hancock and his rise to E-7 in the Air Force, participating in combat missions and managing high-pressure situations. His post-military life as a paramedic and firefighter in Colorado Springs is equally gripping, from performing the city's first infield leg amputation to facing life-threatening emergencies with unwavering courage. Each story underscores the remarkable dedication and skill required in these roles, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the adrenaline-fueled world of first responders.
But Dennis's journey is not just about professional achievements; it's also a tale of personal transformation and rediscovery. After navigating retirement and divorce, Dennis found love again with his childhood friend, Patty, in a heartwarming reunion that underscores the beauty of second chances. Through candid conversations, Dennis shares profound insights on maintaining a positive mindset, overcoming adversity, and the importance of empathy. His lifetime of service, both in the military and as a first responder, coupled with his unwavering dedication to helping others, makes this episode a must-listen for anyone inspired by the extraordinary lives of everyday heroes.
Today is September 4th, 2024, and we're talking with Dennis Flynn, who served in the United States Air Force and the United States Navy. And so, Dennis, we're going to start out real simple. When and where were you born?
Speaker 2:Born in Detroit October 24th 1941, and grew up in Royal Oak, michigan, just outside of Detroit. And I grew up in Royal Oak, michigan, just outside of Detroit, one of seven kids, and I had a great life growing up with my siblings, but I was the renegade in the family, first one to jump off the garage roof with a bed sheet when I was 12. And it doesn't work Right. But growing up I never took responsibility for my own actions, so I was always in trouble. I was always mischief.
Speaker 1:Nothing, really bad. Where did you fall in the lineup there with seven kids? I was second oldest, second oldest, okay. So the first child was the one the parents worried about all the time, right, and the second one sort of got away with stuff then.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, and my older sister. I was buddies with my sister below me there was about three years difference and I told her at one time of course Mom couldn't keep track of me and she would have. My older sister was her XO. She couldn't keep all of us on track and my sister and I just hated her. And when we were teens we were trying to find a teenage hitman to take her out.
Speaker 2:Oh no, there's nothing but humor around our family, uh-huh. And one time my sister looked at me and we were at a family get-together and she just burst out laughing and she said I don't know how Mother stayed out of the asylum with you around. I said like me, yeah, I'm innocent. She says that at 13, you took your tennis shoes off, put them upside down in the clothes chute that, went down to the basement for laundry, left the door open and went downstairs and yelled up Mom, mom, I'm stuck. Well, she comes in, sees the bottom of my feet, wouldn't put it past me and thinks I'm stuck there. And she said it was just stuff like that all the time Drove her nuts.
Speaker 1:That's pretty inventive, rick, I'm going to try that I have a longer shoot at home.
Speaker 2:I was always pranking and finally my mother had me work with my. He was a milkman in Detroit, had the horse and wagon. It was early 50s. Man in Detroit had the horse and wagon. It was early 50s and I was a pain in the butt to my dad but he controlled me better and that way it cut mom some slack and my dad was a practical joker too. I think that's where I got it. But when I was 14, I would hotwire my dad's car and cruise Woodward.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, and being a dumb kid, my way of thinking was well, they can't give me a ticket because I don't have a driver's license, right, but they could have pulled my license until I was 21. But it was always doing stupid things and not forethought. Yeah, I went to a parochial school. I hated school and the thing I hated was you couldn't ask questions. It was very strict and I hated math and everything and the rain was too tight and when I got after it they ran out of nuns. They hired my aunt. She was a retired teacher and she wound up flunking me because I kicked back, thinking well, she's my aunt, she's not going to fail me.
Speaker 1:So when they ran, I've got to ask a question Did they run out of nuns because of you? They might have. I'm just curious. Before we get too far, though, I want to ask you a couple of questions. One is about your mom. Tell me a little bit about your mom, and maybe what's one of your favorite memories when you think about your mom, this would be your favorite thing about her.
Speaker 2:With seven kids in the family, we were all fussy eaters and she was like an angel. She would cook one meal and everybody ate it, whether you liked it or not. And like I, hated lima beans and she said, at least try it. If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it. But everybody had their likes and dislikes.
Speaker 2:And she was like a saint. She was very quiet and usually the scolding and that was turned over to dad, but a very, very caring mother, and her mother was the same way, and so it was my aunt that flunked me. I flunked myself really, but I talked my folks into letting me go to public school. Now I go in the ninth grade, but I'm already a year behind, right Thanks to your aunt. Yeah, and I got straight A's in history and all my shop classes and drafting and flunked everything. I didn't show up. The school was so crowded we had two shifts. Oh, every half hour we'd change classes, because half the school would change class the other half hour. The next they were building a new high school, but I imagine the fire marshal would have gone nuts, oh yeah, and so they appreciated it when you skip school and that's almost like getting extra credit then yeah, skipping school, yeah.
Speaker 2:If you show up, it's extra credit, then yeah, skipping school, yeah.
Speaker 1:If you show up, it's extra credit. I want to ask you about your dad too, because you mentioned that he was the one that gave out the discipline. But what did your dad do for a living, and what's maybe one of your favorite memories of your dad?
Speaker 2:Well, as far back as I remember he worked for a company called Cook's Coffee Company and they delivered coffee to houses like Milk Routes. And then he got a chance to become a milkman and worked for Twin Pines, had his own route and very customer-oriented. If he ran out of something he'd go to the Borden's truck and trade. He hadn't eaten a pound of butter and the customer didn't care that much. But he always, if he ran out of something he'd make sure they got it that day Right and he had a clientele that just loved him.
Speaker 2:I know he was busting his butt trying to raise all those kids and everything and so he got into scouting with me at boy scouts and that was kind of a chore. But one time he bought me a kite. Well, it turned out it's a target kite for the army and about six foot high, uh and I about killed myself at 10 years old running up and down the street trying to get it airborne. And he took it back to the surplus store and the guy said oh, that's made tow behind a Jeep about 30 miles an hour, and you were never going to run 30 miles an hour, were you no?
Speaker 2:But he did everything he could to support me. But I was just kind of a renegade. Yeah, I got a lot of spankings and then, as I got a little older, okay, you're confined to your room for the night. And one night I opened the window and snuck out with my buddy and I come back and the storm window's locked in place so I had to come in and you know, take a chewing for that. But I mean, I was always pushing the envelope Right. And three months into the 10th grade I thought you know, at this rate it's going to take me six years to get through high school. And I screwed up my life and I just felt really down on myself. So I decided to go in the service, always wanted to travel, so I went in the Navy in 1959 so let me so.
Speaker 2:You didn't finish high school then, oh no, I quit three months into the tenth grade. So you left and then you went right into the Navy. I went into the Navy and when I got to boot camp we had a company commander who was a retiring chief and he was an alcoholic and we saw him three times in boot camp. So our company put ourselves through boot camp and I was even screwing with things there. You know, when you march you were supposed to dig in your left heel to set a sound cadence. I'd get the guys around me and start digging, stay in step but dig in your right heel, and then pretty soon we'd have the whole company messed up. Some petty officer would see us and drop and give us 50, and they'd Flynn and they Flynn, you and everything and you know when you're 17, uh-huh, yeah, well, it's 50 push-ups, nothing you know right?
Speaker 1:well, and you're so. So World War II is pretty far behind us when you're in the in the. Navy Korea's back there and Vietnam really hasn't. No, really isn't on anybody's radar.
Speaker 2:Nice time to join.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I can see where you're putting yourself through basic training.
Speaker 2:And I think what made me think about the Navy is as a kid I saw the film of the Doodle Little attack, yes, where the B-25s took off from the Hornet and that bomber dipped out of sight and was skipping on water and got airborne. Well, I joined the ship's. Oh, we have like a club. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, or association, and I was mentioning it, we'd had World War II vets then at meetings and that, and I mentioned that, that excited me, I thought man that's life. I want a carrier Right. And he says well, I was there at the Doolittle launch working the flight deck. And he says Doolittle was a heck of a pilot. These are land-based bombers. He had the shortest runway, no catapults. And he says just before they launched, somebody walked into a prop. Well, that's like falling in a tree mulcher. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Shredded them. Doolittle saw it and was so shook up. But now it's time to launch. He said, if you look real close, his flaps are up. They need to be down to get that lift at low speeds. And so the wind dropped out from under him when he cleared the deck. But he was such a good pilot, he quickly hit the flaps.
Speaker 2:So, that's why he was skipping off the water. The tail was actually skipping on the water it had dropped so far and I said that was an impressive film and it locked the Navy in for me.
Speaker 1:So you go to boot camp. You manage to not get thrown out or get in too much trouble. So then, what was your job, and did you go to some kind of schooling right after basic training?
Speaker 2:No, out of there. I was assigned to the—I wanted submarines but I went to the USS Hancock. It was built in 1944.
Speaker 2:It was an Essex-class carrier and they assigned me to the E division and I was an IC electrician, which is interior communications, sound phones, all that stuff, yeah, and I worked in that rating for four or five months. I really enjoyed it and then. But they had a V6 division with squadron support, maintenance and all that and we supported the squadrons with the equipment they needed and we also drove the tractors and the little Jeeps on the flight deck tractors and the little jeeps on the flight deck. So I switched over but, being the renegade, I went to the V6 Division chief and said I'd like to transfer, I want to work as a mechanic, and so he signed my transfer slip. I went to the V6 division officer, which is a major in the Army, a lieutenant commander right A lieutenant commander and he signed it.
Speaker 2:Then I took it to the E division, my assigned division, and I got my butt chewed, royal, because I went backwards through the chain of command but I wanted to lock in the other one first and so he chewed me out for not following it. Get the hell out of here. And I went down there. But I always grew up because we weren't allowed to ask questions and in grade school, and that I always questioned things. I would pick up junk like old clocks and play with the gears and all that stuff, and so I'm in the V6 division. We're still in port in Alameda and I was in town at a radio shack and they had oscilloscopes that just come out for checking cars Electric, you know, like plugs and all that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they had a kit, so I bought one. Now, I'd never been to electronics. I had a basic electrical school and these guys our technicians. We also did radio support for the aircraft too.
Speaker 2:So I went and talked to the electronic guys and I says look what I got I want to build. Oh, you'll never build that. And I said well, it's a kit, it's got instructions. Two weeks later I got it all built and running and they're just blown away. And another project I did I had an AM radio pocket one and the circuit board broke. They said, oh, it's all balanced, you won't be able to fix it. Well, we had those Mickey Mouse ears on the flight deck. I split the radio, extended the used wires to extend the circuit boards, put half in each ear and I had a radio head set up on the flight deck ear and I had a radio headset up on the flight deck. The only problem is, every time the radar went around you got this huge buzzing in your ears, but it worked.
Speaker 1:You were ahead of your time. That was like the first Walkman and you didn't even know it.
Speaker 2:I know, and it was just, I've always. It's like that movie where the kid says I see dead people. Yes, well, I see things different than other To me you can't fix it as a challenge, Right. And in fact in sixth grade there's one nun that I just love. We were doing medieval drawings for school and the guys were doing the knights in armor and the girls were doing princesses.
Speaker 2:I did a picture of a broadsword but I put a real light line down the center of the blade and shaded one side real lightly. And she came up and looked at it and she says you see dimensionally? I said what do you mean? I said that's what it looks like. The light reflects different off the two angles. Right, and I've had 80 some cars over the years and a kit car I built was like an MG but it had a piano hinge down the hood and stainless steel straight slotted screws every inch on each side. And my ex-wife come out one day and looked at it and all the slots were lined up front to rear. You could drop a piano wire right in there, yeah. And she says you are a nitpicker. I said well, I says if one screw was out of whack, I walked up on this car, never seeing it. I would go right to that. There's a flaw. I'm not an engineer, I don't even want to go there.
Speaker 2:but right, I said, that's the way I see things yeah I'd go to a car show and these guys put ten thousand dollars worth of chrome but the bolts holding the fender are rusty or crummy. Looking, I says, uh, well, a little crudely, but to me that's like going to the bathroom not wiping. Yeah, you just didn't finish the job, yeah. And she threatened to buy me an old sweater with the little fur balls on it. She says that way you can sit there and watch TV and pick the nits off it. Nice, but I enjoyed my.
Speaker 1:How long were you in the navy? How long was it?
Speaker 2:there was a total of six okay and uh, did you do all on the hancock? Uh well, 59 through 65. I got off the ship the day of the cuban missile crisis. Oh, my goodness, 23rd of october 62 went into a reserve squadron with P2Vs and we did coastal patrols and all that stuff. And one time our landing gear wouldn't come down and hydraulics went out or something and you have a mechanical crank to get them down. Well, that was jammed. So the pilot told us I'm going to fly around, burn off our fuel and you have the choice I'll fly slow and over the base and you guys can bail out or you can ride it in. They're going to foam the runway and I thought I've never jumped out of an airplane. Don't care to, I'll ride it in. So we had a belly then and we all walked away without a scratch.
Speaker 1:Great.
Speaker 2:Great pilot, but I enjoyed that. And then, when I got done with six, I was out and the riots in Detroit were going on. I had an 18-month-old kid and a pregnant wife. Yeah. And I thought I had stopped a couple times in Colorado Springs going back and forth the coast on flights and I liked it out there. So I went out and got a verbal promise of a job as a mechanic at a Dodge dealer, packed everything up, got there and the guy didn't remember me.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to ask you a question, though, before we get there. Was it tough to convince your wife to move to Colorado, or was she because of everything going on? Was she on board with it? I'm just curious.
Speaker 2:She was for it too. She was concerned about all the craziness going on in Detroit and everything, and we lived in Royal Oak so it was unseen to us except on the news. But it seemed like the world like now the world's going crazy, everybody's shooting everybody. Right right, and so I moved out there and the guy didn't remember me but went ahead and hired me.
Speaker 1:You got out there and he just was like I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it was two months later. Oh okay, and he didn't remember me and meanwhile I had leased my house here to my brother-in-law and sister, so I had a fallback position in case things didn't work out. And so I get out there and I'm working at a Dodge dealer. On my 32nd birthday, one of the customers came in and was telling me about the fire department. Their starting wage was better than what I was making and I was the manager of the shop and I was the manager of the shop.
Speaker 2:So on my 32nd birthday I went down and there was 350 people taking this test, a lot of them college kids, and I'm 32. I'm thinking, oh, I don't stand a chance, turned around, walked about two blocks away and I thought, oh hell, it's my birthday, you might as well right, big thing in my life. Because I turned around around and I placed third highest on the written test and it was just everything. But it was a lot of mechanical stuff. And these college kids said a draw knife is a curved chisel that you pull toward you, with two handles, and they'd look at that and the choices were a hammer, a hacksaw, a file, or they called it a draw knife or a spokeshave. And they're sitting there scratching their head and I thought that's so damn obvious.
Speaker 3:It's not a hammer Right, it's not a file, but they'd never seen one.
Speaker 2:It wasn't, they were stupid, they'd just never been exposed to it. So I came out real good on that. But I got on. I was one of 16 hired at the time and there was 580 guys on the fire department and they had just built station 11. And they had just built Station 11. And so I got on and I was on about two years.
Speaker 2:We were all EMTs and we had a call very critical had to cut a gal out of a car. She went into cardiac arrest twice, got to the hospital where we got her back and it scared the hell out of me because I didn't know anything past emt, yeah, and I uh, I remember after we got out of the hospital they did save her. We got the hospital, I went outside, it was middle of winter and I've got my bunker pants with just t-shirt and I'm sitting there shaking. But it wasn't cold and I thought I got to do better than this and so I applied and went to paramedic school and they just sent a group through for the training and then they had one opening and I had to go by myself 75-mile commute to Denver every day and I struggled and I had to learn the metric system, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, is this right around the time, Dennis, when paramedics were just kind of becoming? Something. Because I remember as a kid watching what was it Emergency Squad 51, right.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, Johnny and Gage or whatever it was. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Johnny Gage and his buddy there, so it was right around that same time, isn't it? Yeah, just after that.
Speaker 2:So you were kind of on the cutting edge of being a paramedic Right and we were taught to do chest tubes, cranks, where you're going through the throat for airways, where you go in through the throat for airways. I wound up doing the first in Colorado Springs infield amputation of a leg.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh, even a rebel is a paramedic, then kind of yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we had a guy with his leg smashed between cars. We couldn't get him out and he was getting real shocky. I talked to the ER doc and to me it was a mechanical procedure. And what was bizarre is he said, get a good tight tourniquet on his upper leg. And it was smashed about six inches below his knee and it was enough cars that it would be at least an hour before we could get them pried apart, even with the jaws. So I said well, you're going to have to take it off. He said it's obvious we're not going to save the leg Right. And so I get the tourniquet on, I get the scalpel of our OB kit, I cut the meat and two firemen are throwing up and I'm trying to hold it back. Oh yeah, yeah, two firemen are throwing up and I'm trying to hold it back.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, this has got to be really difficult, and then I get to the bone and I thought what the hell am I going to do with the bone Right? And you can't use a power saw, you can't get in there. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the only thing we had to cut which we changed later real quickly was an old rusty hacksaw in our toolbox for the truck Might as well. But I figured, well, they're going to debride it, clean it anyway, so what the heck? So I had to take the bone with the hacksaw. Now the guys are throwing up again and I'm trying to hold it in.
Speaker 2:And we get them to the hospital and they save the rest of his leg. And then I got the doctors mad because they're trying to decide whether they're gonna go above his knee or below, and they and one's arguing for blow, one's for above, and I says, no pun intended, but do you guys get paid? By the foot, you know, like the length of the leg, and the one doctor came unglued and the other one knew what I was asking. Right, he says no below or above. One way the prosthetic will give you like drop foot, and the other one works more natural. I said okay, fine, but the other one thought, are you getting paid?
Speaker 1:for each inch you take.
Speaker 2:But I was always pushing people's buttons anyway. But I love the job because we still did firefighting and every time you went out the door it was different, totally different. It could be a fire and all that or medical. Over 25 years I got stabbed twice and shot once and blown out of buildings four times in back drafts and people think, well, you're nuts because you're trying to get in where everybody's trying to get out. Right, you're running to the sound of the gun and so you're cranked up on adrenaline. You open a door, gets fresh air, boom and it blows you out 30 feet. Well, you're all padded as long as you don't land on that air tank and you brush yourself off like all right firefight and you run back in and to me it was like being in combat and I loved firefighting and if it was slow around the station we were busy pranking each other all the time and somebody says it's like a bunch of 12-year-olds putting a warehouse on a.
Speaker 1:On a company unattended too. Unattended for 24 hours.
Speaker 2:You know you think of stuff to do. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I was always into cars old cars or hot rods but I loved that job.
Speaker 1:How long were you in Colorado then?
Speaker 2:I moved out there, probably in 71. And in 97, I moved back here. Okay, at what point in there.
Speaker 1:We haven't heard about the Air Force. Oh so. I'm trying to figure out what point in here were you part?
Speaker 2:of the Air Force Well about. I think it was around 72. Uh-huh, I got to thinking I've already got six years in the Navy, right, why don't I go back in and finish my 20 and get another retirement going? And so they didn't have any Navy there. Well, they had a Quonset hut on a lake with 12 reservists and a twin 5-inch gun, and their weekend would be spent cranking a gun around pretending they were shooting Japanese Zeros or something. Sounds really exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fort Carson, that was out of the question. We walked around in a cracker jack suit and a huge Army base Wasn't going to cut it. I actually walked around in a cracker jack suit and a huge Army base Wasn't going to cut it. And then we had the Air Force Academy north of us and Peterson Air Force Base in NORAD. So I checked with Air Force and they had a rating as a firefighter. Oh, and I was a firefighter, paramedic or what the heck. I went over and I got out of the Navy as an E-5, and within a couple of years I'd made E-7 in the Air Force. It was wide open.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my job for my two weeks was go out and inspect radar sites and missile silos and I worked for Air Defense Command but I was working with the fire department and doing training and all kinds of stuff. We had a civilian chief and I was the deputy fire chief and he used to chew me out all the time. Young guys be doing housework. I'd grab him up and say you're a bit unranked. I say yeah, I hated supervisors that had that coffee cup welded to their finger and I said to me, if I give an order, we got hoes to test. We means me too. I'm part of that team. Now I have the choice of standing back and watching them or doing the light part of that team. Now I have the choice of standing back and watching them or doing the light part of the job. But I'll tell you and my stepson in the Army was the same way he's a lieutenant colonel and he's humping freight with the E-1s.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes you have to do that.
Speaker 2:It was just in my nature, but you lead by example. Yes and I. I don't think I ever gave a direct order, except once my whole time, and I spent 25 more years in the air force. I loved it and I'd go out on my two weeks. I was my own boss. I write a one paragraph report. Uh, had a lot of adventures at the different places. I went all over the US and I just loved that job and the city would give me my paycheck and the Air Force would give me theirs. I was allowed two weeks a year but they never tracked it.
Speaker 2:So, there's many years. I went three times during the year.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like you were kind of in at a great time to be in the military right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they're really you've got to Well. We were over there in Vietnam on flying missions. Because they're really you've got to Well we were over there in Vietnam on flying missions.
Speaker 2:I did get a chance to go up in an AD as the forward air observer was sick.
Speaker 2:I knew the pilot pretty well and he says come on, you go with me. So been on a combat mission and we come back with a few holes in the flame. What was that like for you? Scary, yeah, but it was fantastic at the same time. Right, and doing close air support and everything else, but in the flight deck I loved it. And that's the only time I gave a direct order. I was almost 19.
Speaker 2:There's a guy I'd hitchhiked home to Detroit and we're friends, but not real tight buddies, and I told him we've got a launch, we've got to be up there at five o'clock check our tractors. Launches at 6 am. Get some sleep, because we're going to be up there 72 hours once we start, right. So yeah, yeah, yeah, and he played Pinochle all night. In the morning we couldn't see him while we're checking tractors. He's inside the island in a corner sleeping. Now the launch is starting.
Speaker 2:I needed everybody on the deck and I had broken the crew into three groups. I had three four-man groups and I had two other senior guys running the other two and that way, if you send one group to chow, tell them to go together, come together, and you know these guys are waiting on you, right because everybody's missing meals and everything else. When I took over and his crew leader came in, he says I've tried waking bruce up. He, you know, doesn't pay any attention, goes right back to sleep. So I went in there and I booted him in the butt.
Speaker 2:I said Bruce, get your ass on that tractor now. And he got up and he's like a 12-year-old. He's throwing a tantrum because I interrupted his sleep. He jumps on the tractor and floors it. Well, it's an 8,500-pound tractor. It's got lead blocks for fenders and it's a diesel engine and it's a gas turbine on the back. We just topped them off 30 gallons of aviation gas, 28 gallons of diesel fuel. His job was to start the second plane, the one behind the catapult, so he would drive up, go past the front of the plane, then back in on the right-hand side, hook up a hot air hose to start him while he goes roaring up the deck. Well, there's guys rolling bombs and rockets sidewinders and everything all over.
Speaker 2:It's a busy place and he's going like hell, so I'm headed up there to chew his butt out. He turns in front of the plane and I see the wheels lock up. They had spilled some oil, wiped it up with rags, but it spilled with a film.
Speaker 2:And I'm about 10 feet from him. Jets are going, I can't hear anything and he just keeps going. He hits the railing and goes over the side, lands on the quarter deck about 60 feet below. It blows up and it burnt the wipers off the pilot house which are above the bridge Right and the fire was out in three minutes. Some second class on the hangar deck bay doors were open, saw it grabbed a salt water line, had a guy turn it on, he dragged the hose out and he flushed it over the side, the fuel right, and it was out. But you know he was killed.
Speaker 2:So my second class come up there and he says and he's later 20s. He said, well, you've got to go identify the body. I said, well, I was 10 feet from him when he went over. He was looking at me yelling for help. Well, you've got to do it. I'd heard all these stories of burnt body smell and all that so I steeled myself for it. The only dead person I'd ever seen was my grandmother laid out. So I go in the sick bay and he's all drawn up and burnt badly. There's a belt buckle and a sole of one shoe left on him. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Looked more like a department store dummy that had been in a fire. Mm-hmm and no smell. That I knew. And I says I know it's him. I saw him go. You'd never recognize him the way he looks now, but that's him. I said okay, thank you, and I went out and I thought that wasn't so bad, went down the passageway about 10 feet, wound up, waking up on the floor and I thought wow.
Speaker 2:And our compartment was about two bulkheads back. So I went in and sat on my rack and I started shaking for about 20 minutes. Just it hit me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But at that age you, like god, you know he got blown away or got killed in a car wreck and you move on. Then it hit me hell. We got work to do so back to the flight deck and and we're too busy to even talk about it, right, and uh, so we're up there for 72 hours and it's a bad thing and all that, all that. But that's why sergeants don't get to know their guys real good. You lose them and it hurts too bad. But a couple of years later I was talking to my best friend who was the crew leader that came in and told him and we still stay in contact he's down in Fort Smith. He says I feel like I caused his death because I reported him and told him to get out there. And I said, well, I'm the one that got him out there and I feel responsible. But I said common sense tells me I told him to do his job. He acted like a kid, caused his own death in circumstances like the oil.
Speaker 2:Well, 10 years later, just before I went in the Air Force, it was bothering me. I went to the VA and I say I wake up about four times a week and I've got this Technicolor movie From the time I wake them up until I identify the body and I'm not sweating or screaming or nothing, but I'm wide awake and the night's shut and that's why you get PTSD. I says, other than that deal in the airplane, I was never really shot at Right. So what's that? She says everybody has a degree of PTSD. I said really.
Speaker 2:She says picture a 15-year-old girl gets in an elevator by herself. A guy in a blue coat walks in, stops the elevator, molests her and then leaves To her. That thought is so terrible it goes way to the back of her mind and she refuses to think about it. Now, 20, 30 years later, you put on a lie detector. Have you ever been molested? Oh, no, and she'll pass. It won't go there. But it has changed your life. Every time somebody gets in an elevator with a blue jacket on she's white knuckles. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe your little brother used to beat you up and because you're older, you didn't want to hurt him, but you took that and that changed your life or different events.
Speaker 1:Yeah anyway, Everybody has it, one way or another, right. You don't have to serve in combat or be in the military.
Speaker 2:Well, now, working with veteran corps, these guys have come up and they look like they've been living in a dumpster for two years, so hold that thought because I want to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to get there.
Speaker 2:But I enjoyed it the whole time I was in. Uh, they treated me good. The va here in lansing is incredible, and this county, uh. I'm constantly getting young kids and older people thanking me for my service. I've never seen a response like that before and I'll thank them for thanking me for my service. I've never seen a response like that before and I'll thank them for thanking me, and the young kids especially. I'll tell them it's so nice that people are aware of the sacrifice that veterans do Make them feel they're doing good too. So they keep it up and pass it on.
Speaker 2:They're doing good too, so they keep it up. Yeah, pass it on. But there's, you know, I was in the era too, like you, where when guys came back from vietnam, people spit on them, called them baby killers. That's pretty hard to take after you've been getting shot at or wounded for your country, right?
Speaker 1:and you're doing the heavy lifting and the hard work, and then it's and they're spitting on you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're better off being a garbage man. They just ignore you. Right, right.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. You were in. You were living in Colorado. You're a firefighter, you're in the Air. Force as a firefighter as well, and so all of this was going on. So how long were you there then?
Speaker 2:I was about 30 years in Colorado, okay, so then, you retired out of the the Air Force and I got a divorce and retired from the fire department all in about a week. That's a lot of change in one week. And my wife and I, looking back, we married our best friend and it was a lonely marriage. We never argued or fought, raised the kids on the same page, but just nothing going on, right. And so when I retired I sat down with her and told her my feelings, that I would like to move on with my life, and she was real upset at first, because all the plans you make, they're gone. You know we're going to do this when we retire, and all that. The next day she came up to me and she says my mother and I and my sister were out in Monterey this summer. They went out for a weekend or something and I was sitting on the beach with my mom and told her there was something wrong and I couldn't put my finger on it. But if it didn't change the next year I was going to ask for a divorce. And so we'd been thinking the same thing, right, you just never said it. We split everything down the middle. I says you get half my retirement unless you remarry. Other than that, the equity of the house, the whole thing, and we moved on. I moved back here Now Patty, my present wife.
Speaker 2:I met her in the sixth grade, when I flunked sixth grade and she was. I was always real shy, but she always and I was a goof off Right, just drawing attention away from me or whatever. And but she always she would say how come you act so goofy? But she was a friend, a very good friend. She cared about me and I noticed that and she's pretty cute too. That's a bonus. And it came to eighth grade I wanted to take her to the dance, the graduation dance, and later I told her when a guy asks a girl on his first date, he feels he's in the middle of the Briggs Stadium. Spotlights are on, the stadium's crowded and they're just waiting for him to get shot down. Right, it is so stressful on a guy most guys if they really admit it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I asked her a week before the dance and she had a date. Well, I still wanted to take her, so I showed up at the dance. I thought I'm at least going to dance with her. I couldn't dance with her but and her date was over at the Punch Bowl Eighth grade guys don't dance either. Right, right, it's universal. So I danced every dance with her. Her day got mad and left, didn't confront me or nothing, he just left. So I walked her home.
Speaker 2:When I came home from boot camp I dated her a few times and she was going through cosmetic school with my buddy's sister, kathy, and our families have always been connected and our families have always been connected and we dated and really, really got to liking each other and we corresponded. When I was at boot camp I came back and we dated some more and I went to the San Francisco, to my ship, and we wrote back and forth another month or two and then I asked her to marry me. First I'd written a letter to my dad. My dad saved it. But dad, I've I met this wonderful girl. I'm thinking. I asked her to marry me and I'm. I'm asking him for his advice, but at the same time. I'm scared of getting married. Right.
Speaker 2:And I don't have any idea what I'm getting into and he saved that letter and gave it to us when we got married.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's incredible, but anyway, I wrote her back and asked her to marry me and her folks says you know he's 17, you're 17. She had just turned 17. And I don't want you pregnant on a base and him out floating around in the Pacific, wait till he gets out of the service. And well, it fizzled out. But I always had an 8x10 of her in my locker door and the guy I told her that the guys would come by. Hey, if she ever dumps you, I want her phone number and she always true Navy fashion, by the way, maybe fashion?
Speaker 2:and she said, no, they didn't. And then Jim, that friend of mine, he said oh yeah, he says I was the first one asked for your number too, and uh, so anyway, when I got divorced I moved back here.
Speaker 1:So so I don't want, I don't want to lose this point. Like you met this girl and you had this whole relationship and then it just sort of went away, it kind of fizzled out and you leave. You lived a whole lifetime, really right without 27 years with another woman that's a lifetime
Speaker 2:yeah, and then you move back to michigan and I went to the dream cruise and I ran into her. It truly was a dream cruise and she had been divorced two years, yeah. So I started dating her and as soon as I saw her I was on the hunt and one day I bought her two dozen long stem roses, took them over and we went down to Wampler's Lake. There's a bar called Jerry's. It's an old place and they have a deck overlooking the lake and I took her to dinner down there and the sun was setting behind her. It was a Pacific sunset, beautiful. Yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I looked at her and I says you know, I asked you 32 years ago if you'd marry me. Have you made up your damn mind yet? And she said yes.
Speaker 1:So she waited until you got out of the service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but her ex was an alcoholic and she had problems with him and everything Got three wonderful kids out of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so she agreed to marry me and uh, in 99 we got married on the third of july now we just had our 25th anniversary and she got a mass at church and we renewed our vows. I did my part of the vows and I I looked at her. I says I was married for 27 years before and I can't even remember that marriage. I said all I know is when you're back in my life, I have never been happier. It's made my life complete. She got so choked up she couldn't say her vows, oh no. She got so choked up she couldn't say her vows, oh no.
Speaker 2:But and I've once I got rid of that. I was short-tempered and everything else. Once that PTSD cleared up, I'm the happiest camper in the world. I'm not religious. I mean I am, but I'm not. And I wake up in the morning. It could be a blizzard or pouring rain or a beautiful day like today. I just look up and thank God for another day. With all the things that I've been through with my body. I feel like Indiana Jones and Patty keeps saying God's got a mission for you, but I don't remember doing anything really big. But I take it one day at a time and, like the veterans, I count. I'm a mentor in the court.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that. So you've done some things since you retired, other than marrying the woman of your dreams that you put off for almost 30 years. So what have you been doing since? Just so the audience knows, we talked a little bit about this in the phone calls we've had, where you do things with the veterans' courts. How did that come about and what are you doing with that today?
Speaker 2:Well, I met a, uh, a marine. I I keep starting to say ex-marine, but they they always correct, no such thing yeah, my stepfather was a marine.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he served in korea and, of course, we harass each other oh yes but so you met this marine, he.
Speaker 2:He asked me to if I'd be interested in getting in on this and it was just starting living in some courts where these guys that are locked up for non-felony things usually a two-year term in jail, too many DUIs or abusive behavior in a family and all that kind of stuff Well, I started out about eight years ago on it and what they wanted was mentors, guys that had been there and done that, because a veteran won't listen to a civilian Right Because we've been there and done that and they haven't.
Speaker 2:They don't trust the court because that's the government, even the court appointed attorney. They don't think they're on their side, they're just going to rat them out and all that kind of crap. But I learned right off they can sit, we can go have coffee one-on-one without the court. Anything they tell me stays with me, unless they're suicidal and I have to report that. But I'm just a go-between. A former military buddy say, and this is the court. Now they'll ask me advice and I try to get as much information or feedback for them as I can to help them along, plus my worldly wisdom, I guess you want to call it.
Speaker 1:You've been around the block a few times. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And so usually I'll get some guy who looks like he's been living in a dumpster. I mean their appearance not all of them, a lot of them are real clean cut, but just average guys and they're just having a hell of a time trying to get off of drugs or alcohol and all that. And they say, well, the Army did this to me. I said no, wait a minute. I said the Army taught you the discipline and all this kind of stuff. But say you're over in Vietnam and your best friend gets blown away right in front of you. That's pretty traumatic.
Speaker 2:How did you handle it? Well, we'd go back to base and get drunk. I said well, it's kind of logical. You know you're very upset. Beer's a of logical. You know you're very upset, beer's a tranquilizer. It's also a habit for me and a crutch. Now that made you feel better. You got through it. Well, something bad happens again, or maybe later in life. You think God I remember that helped me through it. So you go have another beer and you start picking up the habit getting through the. You know, every time you get in a bind you go to your pillow. Right.
Speaker 2:And it's a crutch. And then maybe that leads to drugs and you're very dependent on both of them now and you're making bad choices. And I'm not saying don't ever have a beer, but don't use it right. And uh, yeah, he says I got a little sticker somewhere I don't know where it is now but it says don't blame me for the road you're on, it's your own asphalt. And after they get through the program they say I see the wisdom in that. I says you did it to yourself.
Speaker 2:And there's an old corny saying you can't love others till you love yourself. And it shows you don't shave, you don't take a bath for a month, you wear raggy bathroom once you wear ragged, dirty ass clothes, you don't care what you look like, you don't care about yourself. First thing you got to do is have faith in yourself and think positive. And I said what's changed my life is I don't hang around negative people. I don't watch the news because it's all negative To me. Politics I hate, but that's me. I says but I had a neighbor who used to worry about the poor, starving kids in Africa. And one day I says are you going to go over and teach them how to plant crops? Oh, I couldn't do that. I says you're going to donate money to feed them? Oh, I can't do that. I said you're going to donate money to feed them? Oh, I can't afford that. I said then be a human being, feel empathy for them, feel sorry for them, and then let it go. Anything you cannot change, don't worry about it. What happened five minutes ago is history. If you screwed up, you screwed up. You can't change it. It's already done. Look toward the future and the biggest thing is don't hang around negative people.
Speaker 2:And I said I had a 97-year-old guy tell me one day he says I've never hated anybody. I says that's a really broad statement. And he says well, first of all, he said I wasn't brought up prejudiced. You could be purple, green, black, brown, don't matter, we're all human beings trying to share this planet. He said now you go from there. You go along, there's road rage or somebody's a real jerk to you. He says don't let them bother, you, don't get involved in it, just ignore it and move on, because all that's doing is adding stress to you. And I said I always looked at it. If a guy's a real ass and give me a bunch of crap, I figured. Okay, that's what he is, but he's got to live inside of that guy. I didn't look at him every morning when he gets up, looks in the mirror, so I just disregard it. And he says you know, if they're doing it, they're doing it to get a rise out of you or reaction, or just that's why they are are he?
Speaker 2:says let them deal with their problem, don't make it yours. And I said it's changed my life so much. It's like the guy that's born again, or whatever yeah, I says I.
Speaker 2:People are always remarking how come you're always smiling? I says because I'm a happy camper, I'm enjoying life. The ALCA ever been suicidal? I said. I've never had a thought about it. I dealt with it as a paramedic and I couldn't understand it. People are in a different state of mind, but myself I couldn't even imagine doing it. I want to see what's around the corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I want to ask you a question. So, since you've been working with the Veterans Corps, how many veterans do you think you've helped? How many people have?
Speaker 2:you. Well, it's usually a two-year program, uh-huh. And so I've been in it eight years. I've had probably five or six different guys. Yeah, my last one was 73. He'd been shot in the hips in Vietnam, paralyzed.
Speaker 2:And he says he belonged to one of the veterans groups, vfw or whatever, and would go to the bar and sit there and drink and you'd tell the same old war stories one after the other. That's the bad thing I hear from the courts is they have to go to AA and they have the round table discussions and he says you hear the same story every week from the same guys. He says it never changes and it's really boring for him. But they do a breakaway groups. It's different. But he says and I realized they didn't care about me, I didn't care about them. Once we left the bar we weren't, we were drinking buddies and that was it. I just wanted company and that was it. I just wanted company. And he lost his license and kept getting DUIs. That's how he got in court.
Speaker 2:Nicest guy in the world. His wife had left him 10, 15 years ago. He raised two daughters on his own. Va finally fit him with a leg brace where he can get around better, but he did construction. Now he works for Habitat for Humanity refurbishing houses for nothing. He's 100% disabled, so he's got an income but he raises chickens and Cornish game hens and a couple of cows, and you know Liz Wentz well, one daughter lives with him now, but nice guy in the world Didn't have any mental problems other than his drinking. So he was a breeze. But I've had them that were highly educated and they would justify everything which was part of their habits. We had one guy who was brilliant and he was always quoting Greek philosophers or something.
Speaker 2:It was way over my head but he'd screw up his drug test. And he came in and the judge says you blew your test, this was your first test and you blew, blew it and you're just starting out. And he says, well, I didn't use my drug of choice and she just dropped her jaw like what you know, like, well, I used cocaine rather than marijuana or something like that.
Speaker 2:It's like that doesn't make it right. No, that's true. So she extended his community service and all that. While we're going through this thing, he and his wife had joined a church some oddball church and one of the leaders of the church got hooked on his wife and they were telling him the devil was in him and all that he wasn't following things and they excommunicated him or something, and it turned out that the church worker had an affair going with his wife. Oh no, so they got a divorce and then about a year later he got remarried and he brought his girlfriend to court with him one time.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if she was a transvestite or not, there was something about her that just looked weird. They were married a week and he caught her going out and had some other guy in bed with her. So that fell through. Wow, on top of his PTSD, yeah, and he finally got a job at the GM. Proving around working on the test drive dummies, I thought I wonder if he's the dummy. But he finally got it together. But the guy was very well educated. So it's all. You don't have to be a construction worker, it's people.
Speaker 1:And everybody's different.
Speaker 1:Well, so, as we've talked about your whole life, if you think about it, from the time you were about 17 right up until us sitting here talking now, you have really led a lifetime of service to people and you talk about not being around negative people and having a positive attitude and doing things for other people. You know I think the audience should know as we sit here that you've had your own host of health issues and you have one functioning lung and still, I mean I can tell when I talk to you on the phone you're smiling the whole time we're talking. But we've sat here and talked about a lot of things. We had bagels together before we even started recording and even as you were telling about these things that were going on in your life, you still had a smile on your face and that really says a lot for who you are, because you do all of these things where some people might just sit down and go. You know I've got one lung and I've had heart problems and less than that, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I'm like you don't even do that. You're like, hey, I got one lung, but I'm still going to go out and help these people.
Speaker 2:When I first moved to Colorado with an 18-month-old and a pregnant wife, the guy said I did take it internally. I wound up in the hospital a week later with a super colon attack. It would go right to my guts and I pushed through it. Paramedic school I had a hell of a time getting through it but I pushed through it. Maybe it's the drive I inherited and trying to prove myself. And when I do a job or something I always do the best that I can and nitpick it because I don't want anybody to belittle my work. I guess it's like a personal feeling or pride in the work. I've always built model cars and all that I build I'll show you later. And then tools for vets got some models, military models, ships and so forth and I just detail them. Like crazy. I've repaired computers for years all self-taught, you know, replaced motherboards or built them or whatever, worked on cars, built engines, painted my own cars, did my own welding. It was all self-taught. All you have to do is ask somebody to show you how to do it.
Speaker 1:The people that are good at it. A lot of times they want to tell you, they want to share that knowledge with you Now.
Speaker 2:I learned to stick weld and you know a real welder. There's 15, 20 different kinds of rod for different types of steel and all that. Well, the only thing I really knew was if the rod's sticking it's not hot enough and if it melts through it's too hot. But I can get the job done. I can torch, weld or braze real good, and but it was just learn by screwing up. You're not going to do it perfect every time, and to me, when somebody says you can't fix it, that's a challenge. Screwing up. You're not going to do it perfect every time. And to me, when somebody says you can't fix it, that's a challenge, because at parochial school you can't do that. I thought why Don't ask? Well, I'm going to ask, but I hate math.
Speaker 1:Do you think that follows through with your work with veterans? Because I think a lot of times people are like this guy is hopeless.
Speaker 2:I can see guys feeling like I felt about myself at different times in my life. Like I'm a failure, like going out there. By God, I got a family, I'm going to push through this, and I was on food stamps for a while until I got caught up. I was lucky. I had to borrow one house payment from my father-in-law and I paid him back later when we got. When I got on the farm and got a decent wage, I started to get caught up.
Speaker 1:Well, when you got to Colorado and that guy said I don't know what you're talking about, right, yeah, and the bottom just fell out, right, but you could have walked away from that just an angry person, right? But instead you got him to give you a job anyway, even if he didn't remember it, and you just moved on from there and it didn't hurt.
Speaker 2:When he said, I mean, it shocked me, right, but I thought this guy doesn't remember and I says I was here two months ago and we talked about it and I had so many years experience in Chrysler products.
Speaker 1:He goes oh yeah, now I remember Well, we can clear a stall out and start your Monday, but you could have just walked away, pissed off and never got a job. Well, but you didn't, you just talked to the guy.
Speaker 2:I guess I looked at it like he didn't do it on purpose. He made a mistake, so let's straighten it out and we'll move on from there.
Speaker 3:I guess it's a positive thinking. And I had to have a job and it certainly works.
Speaker 2:And I had. Now I quit school. When I went into service, while I was aboard ship I took correspondence courses, one on auto mechanics, one on commercial or that was later one on aircraft engines. And then when I got on the fire department, I got my paramedic license and the VA bill. I was doing cars on the side and I got an associate's degree in commercial refrigeration, but I never used it, it was always car. And even that I did it different.
Speaker 2:I went to factory schools six schools. I had slipped inside a car door and caught five tenants so I couldn't work for several weeks. I had a cast on my arm and all that. And so I went to my manager at the dealer. I said can you send me to any Chrysler schools Because I can't work? I may as well go to school. So I took whatever they had. I learned 16-speed, spicer transmissions for semi-trucks, commercial refrigeration again, cruise controls, electrical systems and all Took all the schooling I could get. And when I was going to the community college I sent a letter to my mom. I said look, I'm on the dean's list. Was she surprised?
Speaker 2:Now this is how early I started out. Yeah, she says, the first time I caught you skipping school was kindergarten. Well, back in the 40s, boys' shorts looked like girls' shorts, they were flared at the bottom and I was teasing the hell out of the other boys. You know, look like you're wearing a skirt. And I just giving them hell.
Speaker 2:And I came home one day my mom got this pair of shorts and she says look, I got you for this hot weather and it's like Mark Hawley in that Home Alone, oh my God. And so we lived in the middle of the block. I went to the end of the street and I just played around. And the time when the kids were getting out of school I came on home. Mom says well, how was school? Same old thing. Well, our kitchen window was in that direction. Once in a while she would see me playing. She knew I was okay, so she just kept an eye on me. She caught me. Then I got smart. I went around the corner when I skipped school, right, but I started skipping school in kindergarten.
Speaker 1:I just I wanted to march my own band well, and it's interesting that you um that you skipped school, that we started out this conversation with I. I hated school, but yet you liked education.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on my terms.
Speaker 1:Right on your terms or if you were interested in it.
Speaker 2:And I don't know if that's a quirk, or to me it felt like a blessing, because I'd always tell them I ain't got no need for English, I can speak it, you understand. Now my wife knows a little bit of French Very little, and some word will come up and I'll butcher it up and she says pronounce that way. I say, well, whatever.
Speaker 1:Good for you, right or?
Speaker 2:I'll butcher a word up on purpose, just to mess with her, and the only problem I run into is sometimes she thinks I'm serious and I'm joking. But she is. She's a very caring person. How she puts up with me is beyond me, but I've been a happy camper and my ex-wife was a good person too. Right.
Speaker 2:And she's gotten involved with things like La Casa and since I left and the poor gal, she said I'll probably never get remarried. Well, two years after I got married like two years after we split up and she got married a year or so later, one day off from what we got married oh, my God.
Speaker 2:And she married a guy that was retired Army or something like that and I met him. He was kind of weird. He was just going overboard, complimenting her all the time and I thought, well, he sounds so insecure of himself and all that. Well, he wound up getting prostate cancer and died two years after they were married and then she went four or five years and now she's hooked up.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you're familiar with Colorado Springs, but north by the academy it's all pine trees, really wood, it's called Black Forest and they're minimum five-acre plots. She's married to a guy who was a rodeo cowboy, so he's on a walker's back, so he's screwed up and everything, but he treats her good. She loves it being in the woods and there's no underbrush. You get a pine forest. There's very little brush out there and they got a couple horses and wild cats and shit like that and she's enjoying life. But he's pretty stove up but he treats her good. And my daughter lives in Colorado Springs, my son's in Tucson, but I'll ask her how's your mom doing now? When my grandson, my son's boy, graduated from Air Force boot camp, we all met in San Antonio and you know there's my ex-wife and her sister and all that and we got along good and one time I had the summer off and all that and I thought I'm gonna go out to.
Speaker 2:Oh, I had retired, retired yeah and finally and I this 10, 12 years ago I I had a pickup and I said I'll just sleep in the back. I want to drive out to Colorado and visit some of the guys on the fire department, my fishing buddies and that, so I'm out there. It wound up. I was gone like 40 days. She called me you come back.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah shit, but I was out there and then there was a class reunion. I went to it and somebody says your sister and brother-in-law are going to be there. Is that going to be okay? It's not a problem. I was out fishing two weeks ago with my brother-in-law, Because everybody just gets along right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he got cancer and died. It's just crazy. But I went out, hung around with a bunch of guys I did on the fire department, did some fishing, yeah, and then I just lost. I was having so much fun I lost track of time well, you're out there living your best life.
Speaker 1:so, um, you know, we're kind of coming to the close of our conversation and, uh, it's, it's always great to get to know people, but your life has been very interesting and the things that you've done and just the theme of service in all that you do for other people. You know, as we come to the close, I always ask people the same question, and that question is you know, when people listen to this conversation that we're having today, whether it's, you know, a week from now or a hundred years from now, what would you want them to take away from your life and how you've lived it?
Speaker 2:uh, don't hang around with negative people. My dad always told me, when you're forced with a decision, do what's right. If you were raised properly, you know what's right. It doesn't have to be written down in a law or the 10th of May and treat other people like you want to be treated with respect and enjoy life. You don't know if you've got a tomorrow coming or not, right, and if you've got a bad past, it's past. Keep that in mind. It's gone. You can't redo it, so make the best of your future. That's all I can say about that.
Speaker 1:I guess All right. Well, thank you for that and thank you for sitting down and talking with me, Dennis.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're more than welcome.
