Armed Forces Day

This Saturday, May 20, is Armed Forces Day. In fact, this is Armed Forces Week. In 1949 all the separately celebrated military force days were combined into one day. This day is to celebrate all people in the military currently.

Memorial Day, May 29 this year, is to remember those who died during their service in the military. Veterans Day, November 11, is to celebrate retired military.

As I was born and raised about five miles from the largest inland Navy base in the world, we had a great number of students of Navy personnel. The year I graduated, our class had 200 members with only 25 locals. In the yearbook, the locals get a separate picture. As I understand this picture is highly unusual.

The Navy base at one time had around 30,000 personnel. There were two schools for the Navy, electronics and flights.

Our morning alarm clock was jet engines warming up. It was not unusual to have planes flying overhead 24 hours a day. Most days we heard the loud boom of jets, shaking the glass in the windows.

Each summer the Navy Blue Angels would put on a weekend show.

Thousands attended. Since we lived so close we never attended, just drug a lawn chair in the front yard for our private show. It is quite a show, sometimes planes fly very close to the ground and in some maneuvers the planes are only 18 inches apart.

Next April 27-28 you can attend a Blue Angel show at the Vidalia Onion Festival.

All this week show your pride by flying Ole Glory and saying a prayer for our active service members.