“Freedom isn’t free, people paid the price, a lot of people paid the supreme price for our freedom,” said 37-year Army veteran Phil Crow.
“Desert Storm, going over there, made me appreciate the freedoms that we enjoy here in the states.
I wanted to kiss the ground when we got back from Saudi Arabia. It was a great feeling to touch down in St. Louis, to be back in America,” continued Crow, of Dexter.
He went on to add that with the military, he had the opportunity to see a lot of places and do a lot of things he would have never gotten to do otherwise.
“I’m a hillbilly I guess, but I enjoyed the military. It was always good to me and now, man, I’m going to enjoy the benefits of it,” he said.
Crow gathered recently with other Stoddard County veterans to share stories and reminisce ahead of the July 4th holiday.
Air Force Sgt. Walt Rocci said, “I enjoyed the company I had, the people that were there that I served with.” He said during his service, he was stationed in Hawaii for 15 months, “that part was a gravy train job.”
Then, in 1968, he was sent to Da Nang Air Force Base to work on gunships where, he said, they primarily ran night-flying missions.
“I was a gunner, a loadmaster, a mechanic, whatever needed to be done, I did,” said Rocci.
The time Rocci spent in the service was valuable to him, but the same sentiment was shared by all of the veterans interviewed.
“I enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t want to go back,” he added, with laughter erupting from the other veterans as they agreed.
Don “Daddy Jack” Mathis also has 37 years of service memories to share. He spoke of his travels to Michigan, Colorado, California, Texas and Saudi Arabia just to name a few.
“I was all over Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq in 90 and 91,” he said.
“Daddy Jack” as Mathis has come to be known, said he started his service career in 1957 and ended it in 1994.
“When I turned 60, they kicked me out,” he said jokingly.
It was apparent the group of comrades shared the same pride in their years of service.
A well-documented scrapbook was on hand that featured numerous newspaper clippings and old photos of the group’s days of deployment.
“It was something that gave me something for the rest of my life that I can just cling to, being a veteran,” said Army veteran Alan Hedrick. “We were the local 21st transportation unit and got put on notice, zipped up and out we went.
“So, we all we all coffee buddies.”
There’s a difference between having good friends and having people that you served with, according to Hedrick.
“Our personalities are all different. We come from different walks of life, but because we were part of the unit, it’s a little something special and I’m just proud to be a part of it,” he said.
When asked how they felt about the July 4th holiday, Hedrick responded by saying, “family and fireworks are a big part of it, but we should pause for a minute and think about the independence. Sometimes we get so busy with July 4th, that pause doesn’t take place.
“It’s a special holiday and I think we should all pause and think about our freedoms and the sacrifices people made for them.”