Page 14 - Aerotech News and Review, Feb. 17 2017

Proudly Served
by Dennis Anderson
special to Aerotech News
After 40 years in the news business, I put in the hours to turn the page and shift into a new line of endeavor. Con- sidered after 40 years, that maybe it was time to try something new.
After leaving the Antelope Valley Press after a 16-year hitch as editor, I trained at USC’s program for coun- seling veterans and military families to be of help with issues related to the impacts of service. Sometimes it involves working with troops who experienced stress and trauma related to their service, and sometimes it is work with community organizations and veterans.
High Desert Medical Group became my new ‘home’ last year, and they have been very supportive in helping our military veteran community.
The year that I left the Army, in 1975, my goals were modest per- sonally, and hopeful professionally. I wanted to be a writer. I was in the first class of the new “All Volunteer Army,” and also got the opportunity to attend the Army’s “School For Way- ward Children,” otherwise known as jump school for basic parachut- ist qualification. Honestly, the wings mean more than almost any number
Germans “Bravo Charlies,” and that meant border constabulary, or some- thing like it. We took notes.
Sometimes standing a few feet away from our East German border counterparts, I would be filling up a notebook, taking down the particulars to the East German guys collar tabs and rank, and he might be filling up his own notebook. I wanted to look poker-faced, and since the other team was still wearing World War II-style jack boots and field gray uniforms, only with little hammer and sickles instead of swastikas, I can tell you that they looked pretty dour.
So, you could say that working border recon was something like be- ing a reporter. The year I got out of the Army, the news was full of helicopters evacuating the Saigon embassy, and guys like my American Legion buddy Bobby Breech, helping to push those helicopters off of aircraft carrier decks into the South China Sea, to make way so more of our Vietnamese allies could land on the same deck space.
This is how it goes with veterans. We know that there are a few we wouldn’t want to go camping with, the same as certain relatives are a burden over the holidays. But for the most part, veterans treat each other like family. It’s a bond.
Take Bobby Breech. When I was growing up, kind of an idyllic child- hood in the Sun Valley-Sunland Shad- ow Hills area, which then had a hitch- ing post for horses at the Stonehurst Market along with the parking lot, Bobby Breech had an exalted position. He wore an apron, worked the cash register, and he was about my age. His folks owned the market.
Twenty-five years after I got out of the Army to take the plunge into jour- nalism, I had made the circuit from small newspaper, to United Press In- ternational in Washington, to the New York international desk, to the Associ- ated Press in Los Angeles, and back to another daily newspaper, the Valley Press. Like politics, all news is local.
So I was attending a “roast” at the Elks Lodge in Palmdale, and a guy gets up to sing, and I recognize the voice, and I recognize the face. It was Bobby Breech, the kid who used to work the cash register at the Stonehu- rst Market when JFK was president. He was wearing an American Legion shirt, Post 348. Which turned out to be my American Legion post.
I walked over and introduced my- self, and Bobby said, gruffly, “I know who you are.” To be a newspaper edi- tor is not to be universally loved.
I recalled that we had a disagree-
ment over the phone about a newspa- per story, and then I asked him, “Are you Bobby Breech from the Stonehu- rst Market?”
He nodded, and kind of swallowed hard. “Are you the Dennis Anderson from Stonehurst Elementary School?” And that was true, too.
Next, I asked, “Are you the com- mander at Post 348?” And he nodded yes, and I think I saluted, because I said, “Then you’re my post com- mander.”
Where and when did we serve? We are the same age — which to say right now is that we are a couple of the old- est teenagers in the Antelope Valley.
In 1975 when I packed my duffel bag to come home from Germany, so I could go to college and find some sympathetic female company at Pierce College. I had earned my G.I. Bill by putting my time in the Cold War. Bob- by earned his G.I. Bill benefits, among other things, collecting Vietnamese fliers off those Huey helicopters they had to push off the deck.
We had both been serving on oppo- site sides of the world, and made the full circuit from Stonehurst, around the wide world, through the years and to the Elks Lodge in Palmdale. Bobby
See PROUD, Page 15
Looking Forward
s ’
to
Spring
Sat., Feb. 18 • 10 am - 4 pm
Free BBQ Lunch Free Admission & Parking • Raffles
Over 60 Vendors to shop at every day!
Largest Selection of Wind Toys, Kites & Flags. Unique Handmade Items, Antiques & Collectables
Open 7 days • 9 am – 5 pm
Penney Lynn’s
Crafter’s Village & Wind Toys
Search our website for products to Brand your next event!
www.bsembroideryetc.com
Embroidery • Screen Printing Promotions • Uniforms • T-Shirts Polos • Jackets • Patches
We sew patches on jackets, shirts & hats
Mention this ad for
10% OFF
your first order.
(661) 943-8800
Email Orders & Estimates bstitchmain@verizon.net
MoMs Wanted
ages 21 to 40
Earn up to $50,000
as a Surrogate Mom YOU can help a childless couple realize their dreams.
A column about veterans, family, karaoke
of other degrees or honors.
Service afforded me the opportunity
to go to college and find a vocation. Beyond parachute jumping, I wanted to be a writer. So, they Army gave me the tools to acquire a lifelong skill and livelihood. Which is why the G.I. Bill has been the greatest instrument for education and upward mobility, and maybe the best thing to come out of World War II for the ones that got the G.I. Bill passed.
In the Cold War, serving in an armored cavalry unit on the East German border required some writ- ing skills. I think we called the East
BEmbroidery Etc.
8300 Pearblossom Hwy., Littlerock, Ca
For vendor info call (661) 618-1490 or 661-944-6100 penneylynncv@yahoo.com • www.penneylynncraftersvillage.com
14
Aerotech News and Review www.aerotechnews.com ........ facebook.com/aerotechnewsandreview
661-944-6100
info@secondchancesurrogacy.com Tel: 626-559-1060 www.secondchancesurrogacy.com
February 17, 2017