A Special Supplement to The Daily Advance • Chowan Herald • The Perquimans Weekly
HONORING ALL WHO SERVED November 2018
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Although Americans celebrate Veterans Day each year on November 11; we, at Twiford Funeral Homes honor veterans and appreciate their sacrifices every day, Although Americans celebrate Veterans Day year on November 11;the we,year at not just one day each year. We pay homage toeach our veterans throughout Twiford Funeral Homes through honor veterans and appreciate theirheld sacrifices every day, in various ways; whether local veteran programs at our Sam A. not just one day each year. We pay homage to our veterans throughout the year Twiford Veteran's Memorial Park, supporting our local Honor Guard from VFW in various ways; whether localhonoring veteran the programs at ourwho Sammay A. Post 6060 through fund raisers,through or simply life of held a veteran Twiford Veteran's Memorial Park, supporting our local Honor Guard from VFW choose cremation, by draping an American flag over the casket and cremating it Post 6060 through fund raisers, or simply honoring the life of a veteran who may with the veteran through ourcelebrate "Retire Your FlagDay with Honor" Although Americans Veterans each year onprogram. November 11; we, at
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choose cremation, by draping an American flag over the casket and cremating it Twiford Funeral Homes honor veterans and appreciate their sacrifices every day, with the through Flagtowith Honor" program. not veteran just one day each our year."Retire We payYour homage our veterans throughout the year in
Veterans Day, November 11 or every day?
various ways; whether through local veteran programs held at our Sam A. Twiford We, at Twiford Funeral Homes say, Veteran's Memorial Park, supporting our local Honor Guard Veterans Day, November 11 or every day?from VFW Post 6060 through fund raisers, or simply honoring the life of a veteran who may choose "Every day is Veterans Day" say, We, at Twiford Funeral Homes cremation, by draping an American flag over the casket and cremating it with the "Every day is Veterans Day" veteran through our "Retire Your Flag with Honor" program. Veterans Day, November 11 or every day? We, at Twiford Funeral Homes say, "Every day is Veterans Day"
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November 2018 Honoring All Who Served
Faith, service still motivate Bundy after service in Iraq By Anna Goodwin McCarthy - Correspondent Faith and a desire to serve his country have always been big motivators for Carroll Bundy. He recalls being 6 years old
leader with Alpha Company of
Brigade Combat Team. Spirit” while attending a church revival. Bundy. everything.” become a lay speaker at his proud” of his military service.
Submitted photo- Carroll Bundy, who retired from the North Carolina Army Iraq as an infantry squad leader with Alpha Company of the 120th Infantry/ Mechanized unit of North Carolina’s 30th Brigade Combat Team.
been the pastor at New Hope United Methodist Church since January and says he enjoys the opportunity to minister to others. His desire to serve his country manifested itself in his decision to join the North Carolina Army National Guard. He would serve more than two decades before retiring in 2007
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immediate family to join any branch of the military. unit conducted night patrols. Bundy said he spent the vast majority of his time in the Guard at the armories in Ahoskie. Bundy also attended
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time to think.” Besides serving his country
Bundy said his Guard unit
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He says his other big motivator -- faith -- helped during his
gave him the opportunity to visit Rome and Switzerland.
Bundy said. Because National Guard units were also deployed to Afghan-
his years of Guard service.
Thornton Bundy. He works as the manufacturing manager at where he has been employed for 25 years. A member of American Legion the Memorial Day ceremony
also spent nearly nine months Day ceremony in Hertford. Honoring All Who Served November 2018
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Air Force vet Figgs: Military service provided opportunities By Kesha Williams - Correspondent Nearly 30 years have passed since Dennis Figgs Sr. served in the U.S. Air Force. Occasionally, he pulls from the closet the dark, blue, military uniform that links him to a career he hadn’t anticipated. “When I enlisted, I intended to serve four years but I put in 20 years of dedicated service,” Figgs said. “I couldn’t have done that without the help of my wife, Sharon. She put her career on hold each time we had to move because I received a new assignment. Yes, when I look at that uniform now, I see it (the career) all in phases.” Like many veterans, Figgs recalls the era when he enlisted. The Vietnam War was underway. He was aware that thousands of Southern men his age were being drafted to serve. Figgs graduated from high school in 1967 and enrolled at College of The Albemarle. He realized the draft was likely to change his status from civilian to enlistee sometime soon. To simplify things, he and two
friends decided to join the Air Force in 1969. Figgs’ older brother had served in the U.S. Army so he decided to take another route. Figgs also suspected the Air Force would expand his employment options beyond what was available to him in the Elizabeth City area. After completing the application packet at the local Air Force packed their bags. Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio,Texas wasn’t just going to be their
arrived by nightfall. After the bus transporting them to the base eventually parked, the doors opened and a man they came to learn would be their training instructor stepped aboard. The man startled them as he began shouting instructions, ordering them to get off the bus and fall in line. “We looked at each other and thought ‘Who is this guy? Why is he screaming? We don’t even
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Photo by Kesha D. Williams - Dennis Figgs Sr. says he enlisted in the U.S. Air
know him,” Figgs said. “He got started that night and it went on for the next eight weeks. I didn’t like all the cursing and shouting during basic training but that was part of it.” bed that night, he had only two thoughts: What have I gotten myself into? And what if I just made the biggest mistake of my life? Figgs recalls the story today as a way of reminding others that
while life can change abruptly, so can we. Figgs settled into military life, discovering basic training was simply a way of determining who could follow commands, get along with peers on a team and adjust to military leadership. He credits his parents with bringing him up to follow instructions, manage his time and respect others. Over the next 19 years, Figgs worked as a vehicle operator
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he often spent hours studying, attending training schools and preparing to meet his superiors’
could travel abroad and see the contributions American military
for preparing military units
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thought about getting out of the encouraged me to complete my
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We would like to thank all the Veterans who have served our country. Past, Present, and Future
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Simmons: Vietnam vets more appreciated now By Reggie Ponder - Staff Writer Retired Navy Capt. Guy Simmons is grateful that America eventually warmed to its veterans from the Vietnam War. He remembers when the reception was cold and even hostile. After serving on a ship in the South China Sea during the Vietnam War, Simmons confronted the hostility head-on on the campus of Columbia University in New York City. Simmons retired from the U.S. Navy as a captain in 1992 with six years of active duty and 21 years of reserve service. His civilian career was in corpofortunate to earn a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University while teaching ROTC at Columbia. The Columbia campus was the scene of numerous anti-war protests while Simmons was there from 1969-1971, and the shortly after he took the post. ered and extinguished, and no one was hurt in the incident, but Simmons said it could have was located in a dormitory building.
moved off-campus into an unmarked building. Simmons that the midshipmen wear their uniforms on certain days of the week also was relaxed during that time. “It was a challenge,” Simmons said of his time with the ROTC at Columbia. “We didn’t retheir uniforms because we didn’t want them to be targets.” Simmons said in his work as an ROTC instructor he sought not only to impart knowledge but also to address morale and instill a positive view of the path they were pursuing. Morale was a challenge, he said, because “the pressure from fellow students and faculty was enormous.” But Simmons said he believes the ROTC succeeded in its mission even under those circumstances. “We commiscers,” he said. As for the hostility he encountered personally at Columbia, in addition to things whispered as he walked past “there were overt things from both students
and faculty -- but nobody hit me,” Simmons said. “It was unpleasant but it was tolerable. I believed in what I was doing.” Simmons said he believed in America’s mission in the Vietnam War and thinks there was a lot of misunderstanding about the reason for the war. “I believed the people of South Vietnam would have been better off free than communist,” Simmons said. “They wanted the fundamental freedoms that they weren’t going to get under communism.” Simmons, 75, grew up in Hawthorne, N.J., planning to serve in the military. “The older I got, the more the Navy appealed to me,” he said. Simmons was an ROTC student at Columbia from 1961 to 1965 and remembers that when he started, there was not a lot being said or heard about Vietnam. By the time he graduated the war “was building up,” he said. Midway through his ROTC studies, South Vietnamese president President Diem was assassinated, and that created some awareness among ROTC
Reggie Ponder/The Daily Advance - Guy Simmons, who now lives in Hertford, is a retired Navy captain who served in Vietnam and later taught ROTC at Columbia University in New York during the war.
students that Vietnam was a potential trouble spot moving forward, he said. “By my senior year in college, it was surely something that was on lots of minds,” he said. At the time he started college the tension between America and the Soviet Union and associated communist regimes was intense, and “there were all -- one of them certainly which was Vietnam.” After graduating from ROTC at Columbia University in 1965, Simmons was stationed Sutter County, a World War
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II LST or tank landing ship that was being reactivated. After training in San Diego the ship headed toward Vietnam and on the way dropped off 115 Marines at an air station in Japan. During the war, the ship sometimes would see those same Marines in the port at Chu Lai, and the Marines would come aboard for a meal with the sailors. Although the LSTs sometimes more common danger came from mines that would be tached to a ship by underwater swimmers. “Mining was the single biggest threat,” Simmons said. “We were a target, but mostly for mining.” But the ships did sometimes incident that caused the largest loss of life to sailors in the Vietnam War was when anothon a river, Simmons said. The LST he served on had two close calls with mines, Simmons said. If a mine had exploded on the ship it could have been catastrophic, he said, since the vessel frequently was loaded with bombs, napalm and white phosphorous. “We were supporting the Navy swift boats and Coast Guard WPBs, who were interdicting the junks and various vessels
that might have been suspicious,” Simmons said. Simmons said his ship offloaded supplies at beaches and river mouths off the South China Sea. “The risk to us was nothing like the risk to those on riverevery day in country, or the targets in North Vietnam,” Simmons said. “On the scale of risk we were twos -- they were nines and 10s.” Simmons said swift boats were fast and well-armed, but not well-armored because that would have slowed them down. “And they were very, very good at what they did,” he said of the swift boats and their crews. In addition to the supply missions the LST Simmons served aboard also was involved in one amphibious mission in which U.S. Marines and Korean Marines went ashore from the LST in landing vehicle tanks. Simmons said the ship was in and out of Vietnam from September 1966 through December 1967. “I got home in time for Christmas in ‘67,” Simmons said, recalling it was “a great Christmas” and “very memorable.” In early 1968 Simmons was stationed on a guided missile
destroyer based out of Charleston, S.C. Unlike the World War II era LST he had served on in Vietnam, the guided missile destroyer was one of the Navy’s newer and more technologically advanced ships at that time, he said. Simmons moved to the Albe-
saying ‘welcome home,’” Simmons said. Simmons said he believes Vietnam veterans are being treated much better today, and he attributes that in part to the way society has improved its response to veterans returning
in Edenton and now in Hertford, and has been involved in a number of community organizations, including the Rocky Hock Lions Club, Chowan/Perquimans Habitat for Humanity, various veterans groups, and the Ronaoke Chowan Community Health Center. Simmons said he saw and spoke with the late Sen. John McCain -- the Republican presidential nominee in 2008 who was a prisoner of war in
from that restored respect for veterans,” Simmons said. But it was a long time coming. “For a lot of us, it was 15 years before we even started identifying in public as Vietnam veterans,” Simmons said, noting the “Vietnam Veteran” caps that are often seen now were rarely worn in the 1970s and 1980s. Simmons said he feels extremely fortunate to have come through the war and gone on to a successful civilian and military career and in general a very good life. Many were not so fortunate, though, according to Simmons. “There are so many people who have, through no fault of their own, just lived these lives of total misery, and Vietnam was the genesis of it,” Simmons said. Simmons said keeping that in mind motivates his support for veterans organizations such as Disabled American Veterans, the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.
recently in the spring of 2017. At that time, Simmons was in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center and other community health centers. He ran into McCain in a tunnel on Capitol Hill. “He and I stopped and shook hands and said ‘welcome home’ to each other, which is the greeting that is exchanged among Vietnam veterans -because when we came home there weren’t a lot of people
and Afghanistan.
Honoring All Who Served November 2018
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Calvin L. Lawrence Sr.
United States Navy Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer (E9) 02/1970 - 03/2000
Master Chief Petty Officer Calvin honorable serviced his country for 30 years. His first fifteen years in the Navy, he worked as an Aircraft Mechanic. His last fifteen years he worked as the Command Senior Enlisted Advancer To the Commanding Officer on all Command policies and Navy policy and Matters pertaining to enlisted personnel. He is a graduate of D.F.WALKER HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1968. Edenton, North Carolina
H. Clay Ferebee, III U.S. Navy Lt. 1942-1946 Clay Ferebee was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for distinguishing by cool and gallant conduct during an action against the enemy on July 21, 1944.
To The Late
James C. Sharpe Thank you so much for serving your country. Your commitment meant so much to the family and friends. Dr. Mary E. Sharpe, Sister James H. Sharpe, Son In Remembrance of
In Memory of
Staff Sergeant Donovan Carlton Whitehurst US Air Force
1996-2006 Your spirit will rest with us always
The Whitehurst Family 8
November 2018 Honoring All Who Served
ONEAL COPLEY US NAVY Old Soldiers and Sailors never die they just fade away
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Army was right choice for Camden’s Riggs
the Army. -
By Chris Day - Multimedia Editor County commissioner and soon-to-be-retired U.S. Army ton Riggs says he made the
in the performance of their job -
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which started in October 1983 as a recruit at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. He enlisted as a mechanic and while stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, in 1985 was assigned ground support duty in the Army’s Nuclear Security Program. This assignment sent him to Greece, where he also was promoted to sergeant, E5. In April 1989 he was proordered to the 307th Military Intelligence Battalion, in what was then West Germany. With the 307th, Riggs deployed in support of Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. In June 1991 Riggs was reassigned to the U.S. Field Artillery Training Center and School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he took over as senior maintenance technician of the 1/78th Field Artillery Battalion. Riggs oversaw the maintenance of equipment used to train the A notable moment in Riggs’ tour at Fort Sill was when he
the Order of Saint Barbara, after the artillery pieces he was 450,000 rounds without an accident. Following Fort Sill, Riggs was assigned to a unit in South Korea and a year later in January 1997 he left the active duty Army for a career in the Army Reserve and as a civilian contractor supporting the as a reservist was with the 58th Transportation Battalion at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. He was later transferred to a unit in Japan, where he was promoted to Chief Warrant was promoted to CW5, the ranks, and was assigned to Fort Shafter, Hawaii, where he has served since as a member of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics for the Army’s 9th
Mission Command. In Hawaii, Riggs oversaw the upkeep of about 23,000 pieces of equipment attached to units around the world. The award narrative continues in its praise of Riggs and his military career. “He has been an excellent maintenance manager and sustainment planner throughout his distinguished career,� the narrative states. “While in the Army Reserves, he has been trained instrumental in managing the maintenance programs, the turn-in of excess and accountability of Army equipment for several commands.� Like many veterans, Riggs is thankful for the opportunity a career of military service provided him. “The service to my country, which afforded me travel, opportunities to meet people and a lifetime of hands-on education,� Riggs said, in response to what he liked most about serving in the Army. “I have over 550 college semesters hours and plenty of job and life experiences.� Lately, there has been some progress in how veterans are recognized and honored by fellow Americans, but more work is needed, Riggs explained. “I feel recently we have made a few steps in the right direction,� he said. “We still are not recognized as much as I personally would like. These young soldiers commit their heart and soul to defending our nation and our constitution and should be commended for their efforts. “Too many citizens take them for granted or look down on them,� Riggs continued. “The result is an average of 21 (veteran) suicides per day across our nation. How do you instill respect in people that don’t even respect themselves? Answer that question and you will solve more than one problem with society.�
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Navy vet recalls heroism of By William F. West - Staff Writer It’s been three years since Scott Seddon retired from the Navy, but he can recall like it was USS George Washington 10 years ago -- that he says reminds him of how well trained military personnel are and how heroically they serve the nation. Seddon, 47, was serving as
out aboard the aircraft carrier in May 2008 off the Chilean coast. “Oh, it was bad,” Seddon said, recently describing what happened. After completing a four-hour watch, Seddon had been asleep in the carrier’s state room
less than three hours when he suddenly awoke about 6 a.m. to “dead quiet.” Seddon said he found out from someone in the broken out. Although he didn’t immediately see smoke, he noticed there wasn’t any electricity. He then saw smoke down a passageway. As he tried to open a hatch, smoke billowed down. A general quarters alert then sounded throughout the ship.
extinguish, injured 37 sailors and damaged electrical cables and components throughout the
started by a lit cigarette near improperly stored chemical containers. Both the ship’s com-
and returning sweating or suffering from dehydration, receiving intravenous injections and then
of duty because of the incident.
Seddon said his division was able to restore some electricity
said, noting at least a couple of personnel suffered burns trying to rescue three personnel from a pump room. “I mean, literally the whole aircraft carrier, from mid-section aft, was de-energized. Cables were just burnt.” But what he also remembers is the crew’s response, and how everyone aboard the Washington, including the aviators, responded to the emergency the
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way they were supposed to. “The one thing about the military is you constantly train for certain events,” Seddon said. “And I can tell you the way that we trained and we responded to that casualty was amazing to watch.” He recalls Navy personnel going
up temporary lights so incoming aircraft could land, assess the damage and provide help. Seddon, who is originally from Ohio, served in the Navy from 1990-2015. He started out as an electrician’s mate, serving on submarines, including the USS Rhode Island and the USS Minneapolis-St. Paul. He then went on to Pensacola, Florida,
ing a little with emotion. Seddon in fact keeps in contact with current Navy personnel via Facebook; his social media account has about 1,700 friends. Facebook allows him to keep up with what’s going on in their lives, including when they receive a promotion, he said. “It’s almost like watching these young adults grow into warriors and service members,” Seddon
William F. West/The Daily Advance - Retired U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Scott Seddon is senior vice commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6060 in Elizabeth City.
George Washington, he would go on to serve on the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, ending his 25-year career as a lieutenant commander. After retiring, he worked a year in a plant in Windsor, Virginia for specialty coffee giant Keurig Green Mountain. He’s now a
supervisor at Newport News Shipbuilding. Seddon lived in Franklin, Virginia, for about eight years before living a brief time in Elizabeth City and settling in Hertford four months ago. vice commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6060 in
Elizabeth City. Asked what Veterans Day means to him, Seddon talked about the younger Navy personnel he bid farewell to when he retired. “The kids that we trained that are still carrying the torch for their country, is my biggest thing,” he said, his voice chok-
these guys and girls do so well. And you feel like, ‘Wow.’ ... You get to see them mature into the Navy veteran that you want them to be. It’s pretty exciting.” Seddon said most civilians don’t Navy personnel make when they leave their families behind for long deployments aboard a ship. He talked about younger sailors whose spouses have babies while they’re at sea having to wait months to be reunited with their families. “It’s just amazing,” he said.
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Navy vets Morrow and Lawrence recall service, help other vets By Nicole Layton - Chowan Herald EDENTON -- George Lawrence and Fred Morrow both served in the U.S. Navy around the same time. But their time in the military was different: Lawrence’s tours were in Asia Morrow was stationed in Europe and the Mediterranean. Both settled down in New Jer-
They vacationed on the Outer Banks together with their families until eventually retiring and settling down in Edenton. They now live next door to each other and both are active in American Legion Post 40. Lawrence and Morrow joined the Navy at 18. Lawrence graduated from high school at
NICOLE BOWMAN-LAYTON/CHOWAN HERALD - Fred Morrow (left) and George Lawrence both served in the U.S. became active members of American Legion Post 40.
rence served aboard the USS
for four and a half years. In
about six to nine months each.
was drydocked for repairs in
tralia and the Gulf of Tonkin. He served for nine and a half years. Morrow joined the military on his 18th birthday and served
ripped through the ship on July in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin during the The blaze broke out after an
electrical anomaly caused a Zuni rocket on a F-4B Phanexternal fuel tank of an A-4
chain-reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. The late U.S. Sen. John McCain was among the
Morrow comes from a long line of service members. His dad served during World War II in the Philippines. His grandfather was in World War I and was honored with both the Silver and Bronze Stars. “Most of my family was in the like it was the right thing to
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do.� Lawrence, whose older brother enlisted in the Navy six months before he did, said being in the military helped him learn organizational skills and understand how chains of command work. “It shapes you to be more tolerant of things and to be able to think under pressure,� he said. Morrow said his Navy tours at times were stressful, but they also gave him a sense of accomplishment. “We were more like good-will ambassadors for the U.S.,� he said of his Navy tours in for everyone. You have to want to serve and want to be a part of something.� Both said it was tough when they got out of the service. “We didn’t say we were a veteran,� Morrow recalled. Lawrence recalled marching in a parade and a 6-year-old coming up to him and calling him a “baby killer� because his parents had told him to. Lawrence said nowadays, most people in Chowan County support America’s veterans. “There are a lot of people who appreciate veterans,� Morrow said. “There are a lot of people who feel like the United States doesn’t need to be the world’s policemen.� “People don’t understand how you defend yourself against a lone wolf,� Lawrence said. “You have to remain vigilant.� “When you wear your hat
or something else indicating you’re a veteran, a lot of people thank you for your service,� Morrow said. “That didn’t happen when we came back home.� Both Morrow and Lawrence, who are in their 60s, help organize activities that support other veterans. Once a month, they gather used clothes from the local clothes closet and other private donations and deliver them to the VA hospital in Hampton Roads. The American Legion Auxiliary that runs the hospital’s store distributes the clothing to homeless veterans and patients who need it upon release. Morrow and Lawrence also help their wives raise money for Wreaths Across America. lay wreaths on 850 veterans’ graves in Chowan County as part of a nationwide effort to honor all decreased veterans. The veterans also help organize disabled veterans every April. Why do they help out? “It’s the right thing to do,� Morrow said. “No one left behind,� Lawrence and Morrow chimed in together. “We’re young enough to still do these things,� Morrow continued. “It’s hard to get young people involved in this. Young people have jobs, kids and other things to do. I didn’t start getting involved until I retired.�
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252.221.4348 | 252.221.8343 Honoring All Who Served November 2018
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Vet Saul hopes to put new skills to work protecting soldiers By Jon Hawley - Staff Writer Michael Saul can’t be in the Army any more, but he still hopes to help his brothers and sisters in uniform. Saul, now a College of The Albemarle student, is learning computer programming and hopes to help with new military technology -- “just being able to some way help out with preventing a lot more casualties, you know, something like that,” he said recently. Saul, 29, drove military vehicles for resupply and recovery missions, including through istan. He left the military because of a medical discharge, he said. Saul decided to enter the service while still attending Central Elementary School in Barco, he recalled. “I was school age when 9/11 happened,” Saul said, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “We saw it on the TV before they called school out that day and sent us all home. It just something I wanted to do from that point. “I kind of felt almost like an obligation to serve the country and do better things for everybody as a whole,” Saul continued. He also said he came from a poor family, and so the military would help him get higher education. Saul enlisted in 2008 and received his basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. “It’s like a rush. You get a feeling of ‘what did I get myself into?’” Saul said of basic training. For him, sleep deprivation was one of the toughest parts. It 16
ERCMY TILLMON/THE DAILY ADVANCE - Army veteran Michael Saul, who works as a bus driver for the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools, says he joined the military to serve his country and because he hoped it would provide him opportunities to pursue higher education. He’s currently studying computer science at College of The Albemarle.
would “mess you up” to have lights out around 9:30 p.m. and then be up an hour or two later for guard duty, he said. “Other than that,” basic was “exciting,” Saul said, as he got to repel, shoot and learned teamwork. After basic training, Saul was sent to Fort Bliss, Texas, for advanced individual training and then assigned to Fort Bragg with the 525th BattleWhy did he become a military transport operator? It was the best of limited options, he said.
November 2018 Honoring All Who Served
“I was colorblind,” Saul said. “When you go in when you’re colorblind, they offer you cook, they had a laundry services (military occupational speciality) they phased out, and truck driver.” Saul liked trucks and getting to drive still let him get out and see things, he said. He soon saw a lot, getting deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, from 2010 to 2011. Insurgent attacks were a frequent threat then, as they have been and remain since the U.S. sent troops there just weeks after 9/11.
“Most of our mission was to resupply, because we were at a small little (forward operating base,)” Saul said. In that role, Saul transported people, goods, mail and more, and also went on recovery missions. “It was pretty dangerous,” he said. “Thirty days from coming home, 11 months over there, I hit a bomb, I hit an IED.” Saul said his truck hit the improvised explosive device as he was picking up a mine roller, which is a frame with wheels that attaches to the front of a
truck and, ideally, rolls over and sets off mines before the manned vehicle reaches them. The mine roller had done its job -- suffering damage in an explosion -- and he was backing up his truck to haul it off when he set off another IED. Saul was “lucky� to have backed over the IED, he continued, and only suffered some hearing loss. Later, Saul discovered shoulder problems that forced his medical discharge. The problems interfered with his ability to bear heavy loads for long periods of time, he explained. “I realized I needed to make a living off my mind,� he said, continuing that he had relatives in computer repair, and that helped draw him to computer programming. That brought him to COA, where he hopes to obtain an associate degree and then seek further education. Saul hopes to work with the military as a civilian, and
support equipment that protects troops, including taking them out of harm’s way entirely, he said. “Even when I was there in 2010, we had remote guns on trucks so you didn’t have to have a person up there, exposed,� he said. Today, Saul still sees the value of service -- he had intended to serve an entire career in the military, he said -- and said he feels most people, if able, should serve the country somehow, even if just civil service. Asked for advice he’d give to young people considering joining the military, Saul stressed they should join only if they are fully committed to serving. “If you get out on a negative, it can severely impact you,� he said. While pursuing his education, Saul said he’s working as a school bus driver for Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools.
Thank you to all our Veterans!
Honoring All Who Served in the US Military The Military Affairs Committee (MAC) of the Elizabeth City Area Chamber of Commerce would like to thank our Sponsors for their valuable support and encouragement for our work this year. Your efforts to support the military in our community are appreciated.
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For more information on the Military Affairs Committee, please contact the Elizabeth City Area Chamber of Commerce at (252) 335-4365, or check our website at www.elizabethcitychamber.org.
Honoring All Who Served November 2018
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O’NEAL
PARKS
SAWYER
PARKER
PFC, SR US Army, US Coast Guard 6 years
Chief Petty Officer US Navy 20 years
US Army 2 years
Sgt. United States Marine Corps 3 years
Richard C., Sr.
Arlon
Abbey Simmons
Thomas M., Sr.
Groomer/Owner
Melvin
WILLIAM H. MORGAN, JR.
Attorney At Law
252-335-WAGS(9247) Like us on Facebook
1249 US HWY 17S, Unit 6 Elizabeth City, NC 27909
Woodard’s Pharmacy
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November 2018 Honoring All Who Served
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November 2018 Honoring All Who Served
Ben McPherson Owner 252-339-2142
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MORGAN William
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We Honor Your Commitment. We Salute You for Your Values. We Thank You for Your Service. This Veterans Day — and every other day — we honor those who This Veterans Day—and every other day—we honor those serve our country. At COA, active duty and retired military, as well as who serve our country. Atof COA, activeeducation. duty and retired their dependents, realize the promise a college Learn military, as well as their to dependents, realize the promise more about the resources available veterans and their families at www.albemarle.edu/military of a college education. Learn more about the resources or contact available to veterans and their families at John Benton, Military Liaison www.albemarle.edu/military-veterans. 252-335-8021 ext. 2258 john_benton40@albemarle.edu