Thank You Veterans 2022

Josh Voss

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Fairfield native, from shadows of Travis, soars to distinguished Air Force career

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

William Young Jr. felt the pres ence of Travis Air Force Base while growing up in Fairfield – and the presence of a family history of serving in uniform.

Both his grandfathers served in the U.S. Army during World War II. His father, William Sr., and his mother, Ollie, did four-year stints each in the Air Force. His brother, Christopher, retired from the Air Force after more than 20 years.

“I always wanted to serve, and I think that is one of the things we don’t talk about enough: the blessing of being born in the U.S.,” said Young, an Air Force colonel. He said it is a privilege to serve the U.S.

So it is not a surprise that he would participate all four years in the Junior ROTC program while at Armijo High School, graduating in 1987.

“Then I went off to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado,” he said. He graduated in 1991.

Out of the academy he became an elec tronic warfare officer flying B-52s, the launch of a three-decades-long career in the challenging and ever-changing field.

Young – call sign “Dollar” – has been an instructor electronic warfare officer with more than 2,500 flying hours, pri marily in the EA-6B and B-52, including 240 combat hours “over the skies of Afghanistan.” He also has “backseat time” in a host of Air Force fighters.

He also was very much involved in the warfare planning of the war.

“My initial plan was to go to the academy, fly one assignment, and proba bly get out and start my own engineering company,” said Young, who was looking to satisfy his interest in science and math. “But that didn’t quite happen.”

Instead, the Air Force provided the opportunity to live in a world of science and math, and along the way he earned four master’s degrees (organizational management, strategic studies, air and space power strategy, and air operations), plus a doctorate from the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology in systems engi neering with an emphasis in secure systems engineering.

If the military was always part of of his life, Young said he also felt the presence of God, attending St. Stephen CME Church on Union Avenue.

“My faith in Jesus has been my rocksolid foundation. This is where my strength is from,” said Young, who will

leave the Air Force at the end of 2022 after nearly 32 years of service.

Young was ready to retire in 2019 but Gen. Mike Holmes, the commander of Air Combat Command, asked him to hold off and help in establishing a brand new wing, the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, for which he served as the first wing com mander. Young said it was as if his entire career had led him to that moment and to

that task.

But first he had to ask his wife, Tonya, and of course, pray on it.

“She said, ‘Honey, are you sure?’ ” But ultimately gave her support, he said. The couple has two daughters, the oldest, Summer, 26, from his wife’s previous marriage; and the youngest, Wynter, who is 8. The family lives in Niceville, Florida.

The Spectrum Warfare Wing is tasked to deliver electronic warfare and electro magnetic spectrum capabilities to all Air Force weapon systems and platforms via “missionware” applications, mission data, advanced networking capabilities and electromagnetic warfare artificial intelli gence/machine learning algorithms, according to information provided about the wing. The new organization will even tually consist of more than 2,500 engi neers, scientists, analysts, intelligence personnel, operations and maintenance experts supporting 24/7 multiple-domain operations around the globe.

Moreover, Young created a pair of systems in use in the new wing: SystemTheoretic Process Analysis for Security (STPA-Sec) and Functional Mission Anal ysis for Cyber (FMA-C).

STPA-Sec is the security analysis framework used to help secure many of the nation’s most complex systems, including the Sentinel, the U.S. Air Force’s new intercontinental ballistic missile. FMA-C is a modified version of STPA-Sec that is being applied across the Defense Department to improve mission assurance against cyber disruptions.

Now Young does some consulting work and is an associate research professor at Syracuse University, where he is working on electrical engineering and cyber security.

Young said many people look at their career climb as though it is a pyramid, ascending from a wide base supporting those at the top. He looks at it as though the pyramid has been flipped upside. The higher the achievement, the more there are to serve.

“Unto whom much is given, much will be required,” said Young, citing a favorite Bible verse, Luke 12:48.

COURTESY PHOTO

Col. William E. Young Jr. helped establish, and served as the first commander, of the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

Suisun City’s veterans post receives honor for World War I heritage

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

The spectral sounds of Taps summons the past.

For five evenings, starting Sept. 5, a bugler called out in honor of Manuel E. Reams Jr. and others who sacri ficed their lives during World War I.

Reams is among 116,516 Americans who did not return home alive – one of 63,114 who died in combat, the U.S. Depart ment of Defense reports.

There are 60 Solano County residents who died in the war, their names etched into a stone wall of a memorial at the Solano County Old Courthouse in down town Fairfield.

Reams was born in Suisun City, but was a Santa Rosa cattle man by the time the U.S. Army called him into the war. He died Oct. 31, 1918, the first day of the Ypres-Lys offensive, believed by many war historians to have been the battle that led to the end of the war 12 days after the bat tle’s start.

Fifteen months later, on the evening of Jan. 7, 1920, in the Odd Fellows Hall in Suisun City, 37 men who had served in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps during the Great War, voted to create California American Legion Post 182 and named it after Reams.

Post 182 is considered by the World War One Centennial Com mission as a legacy post because it is named after a World War I soldier. It is one of about 350 Legion posts that have been identified as legacy.

It is that legacy that led to the honor of being recognized, through the Taps for Veterans program, at the World War I

Memorial in Pershing Park in Washington, D.C.

“I was surprised,” post Com mander Richard Bluhm said about hearing about the honors. “I had never heard of this group, but it is nice.”

The Suisun Memorial Veterans Building, located at 427 Main St., includes a photo of Reams and a number of World War I artifacts on display.

The war memorial in Wash ington, D.C., was opened to the public April 16, 2021, eight years after the commission was formed to plan for the centennial celebration of the Great War.

“It is now open to the public, but it isn’t quite finished yet,”

said Theo Mayer, the Venturabased technology and program director for the commission and the Doughboy Foundation. His wife, Kathy Abbott, is the project manager.

Still to be completed is a bronze statue, “A Soldier’s Journey,” which will be 58 feet long and will feature 38 figures that tell the story of a soldier from the beginning of the war to its end. It is scheduled to be dedi cated in 2024. The artist is Sabin Howard.

“It starts with a daughter handing the soldier his helmet. He is torn between (leaving) his family and the war,” Mayer said. The bronze then depicts the

soldier and others going into battle.

“It ends with him giving his helmet back to his daughter,” Mayer said, “. . . and what she sees in it is World War II.”

A photo of the statue is on display at the memorial, at which he once saw a woman sobbing while looking at the picture. She told him it was the first war memorial of any kind she had seen that included the wives and families of the soldiers.

Once the commission’s work is completed, the task of main taining the memorial and conducting programs falls on the Doughboy Foundation, which was formed shortly after

LEARN MORE

• Livestream of Taps program: https://youtube.com/c/ thedoughboyfoundation.

• World War I Centennial Commission site: ww1cc.org.

• Doughboy Foundation: doughboy.org.

• How World War I Changed America: doughboy.org/hwwica.

• Baseball in World War I podcast: https://www.worldwar1 centennial.org/index.php/ communicate/2015-12-28-1826-00/weekly-sync-call/6603the-doughboy-podcast-episode145-10-21-19.html (find it in the “Historians Corner” section).

the commission.

The Taps for Veterans program started May 24, 2021, and has continued every night since. It honors the 4.7 million who wore an American uniform during the war.

Mayer notes that prior to the war, there were 300,000 Ameri can men and women in the armed forces. In a matter of 18 months, that number was brought to 4.7 million, with 2 million going to Europe.

Overall, there were nearly 20 million deaths and 21 million wounded during the war: 9.7 million military personnel, on both sides, and about 10 million civilians died.

Mayer said when he came into the project he looked into how many times people were search ing on their computers for World War I-related matters. He was shocked at how few there were, and how little it was being taught about in schools.

He does not think it is a matter of disrespect, but one of

AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC FILE

Laurence Stahl, left, past commander of Manuel E. Reams Post 182, and Richard Bluhm, current commander of Manuel E. Reams Post 182, stand next to a display case honoring the sacrifices of World War I at the Veterans Memorial Building in Suisun City, Aug. 30. On the wall between Stahl and Bluhm hangs a portrait of Manuel E. Reams.

“amnesia,” and the work of the commis sion and the foundation, he hopes, will raise more awareness.

“It was probably one of the most conse quential and impactful events in Ameri can history,” Mayor said. It was the first time in history the United States sent sol diers abroad to defend foreign soil.

In time, the Taps program could evolve to include other American Legion units, other veterans organizations, and possibly even individual veterans.

On Sept. 13, Pershing’s birthday, a special ceremony was held. Pershing, born in 1860, was the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. Only Pershing and George Wash ington have been designated as General of the Armies.

A similar presentation, featuring Echoing Taps, will take place Nov. 11, marking the 104th anniversary of the war’s end.

Reams was known affectionately as

Mannie, but also had picked up the nick name “Babe” during his semi-pro base ball career from 1910 to 1915 – a time in which George Herman “Babe” Ruth was making a name for himself as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

He attended St. Mary’s College, where he played baseball, football, basketball and ran track, and finished his education at Santa Clara College, also playing base ball there. He eventually gave up base ball, got married and moved to Santa Rosa to raise cattle and other livestock.

In 1917, he was called into the war.

Prior to participating in the battle in which he was killed, Reams had been wounded in the Meuse-Argonne offen sive, a 47-day battle along the western front that started Sept. 26, 1918, and continued until the Armistice was declared at 11 a.m. Nov. 11, 1918.

Believed to have been killed, the Suisun City native was found wounded in a German dugout.

Reams is buried in the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Bluhm credits two former post com manders, Michael Brimer and Edna Barnes, for their research and collabora tion on the post’s history.

Rio Vista legion commander eyes VA clinic for river city

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

The typhoon treated the 432-foot USS Gray like a toy boat in a bathtub.

As the chief of the ship, it was Noel O’Brien’s job to navigate the sub hunter through the storm. He remembers diving the ship into the heavy seas, watched as the 28-foot propeller left the water in the stern, and then watched as the water crashed over the 28-foot bow.

“It was fun,” said O’Brien, who served in the U.S. Navy from 1981 to 1997, retiring out after suffering a training injury. He was part of the response team that followed the 1983 bombing of the Beirut barracks, killing 241 service members – mostly Marines – and served in combat zones during both Gulf Wars.

O’Brien said it was a sense of adventure that convinced him to leave St. John Fisher University after two years and join the Navy – and adventure he got, including a treasury of memories from traveling the world aboard the aircraft carrier USS Constella tion, the destroyer USS Truxton, as well as the Gray and some smaller vessels.

It was on the Constellation that O’Brien would get his first taste of navigating a ship, and the responsibility of launching aircraft.

He remembers while being called to battle stations on the Truxton, standing on the bridge “with my charts and my coffee” when a young lieutenant came in, decked out in all his gear, and with some surprise at the relaxed scene in front of him, asked O’Brien if he knew they were at battle station alert.

Of course, O’Brien knew, and

he knew his duties, which included keeping close a brief case with vital papers that would go with the ship’s captain if he had to leave the vessel. And O’Brien would go with him.

On the Gray he became a warfare specialist, basically a jack of all trades aboard the ship.

“I enjoyed it, and I had no plans to leave the Navy, I had to,” O’Brien said.

That early discharge was because of a serious training accident while stationed at Trea sure Island. It changed the tra jectory of his life, and ultimately what turned into a career – and now post-career advocacy –helping other veterans cope.

O’Brien was born in Ireland. The family moved to Rochester, New York – with its icy cold, snowy winters and sweltering hot summers – when he was 3. He had three sisters and two brothers.

He is engaged to be married, and has two children, twin boy and girl, from his first marriage.

O’Brien started college with an interest in psychology, though he did not take any classes in that discipline. He was, instead, looking for adventure and the Navy was calling.

But he returned to psychology after leaving the Navy, earning a master’s degree and going to work for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, for which he

was a therapist.

“I feel responsible for taking care of my fellow veterans,” O’Brien said.

He remembers an Iraq veter ans who could not come to see him at his office in Oakland. The environment triggered his posttraumatic stress disorder symp toms, so O’Brien worked with him at Mare Island.

His case management folders include Vietnam and desert wars veterans, and even a handful of veterans from World War II.

“So probably, 90 to 95 patients,” O’Brien said of his career.

When he finally retired, he found himself at the Veterans Memorial Building in Rio Vista,

home to American Legion Post 178, for which he has been the commander the past five years. He also is a lifetime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

O’Brien said he probably has another year in him as post com mander, and he has some goals he would like to accomplish.

He hopes to have a second homeless veterans house built near the first, perhaps one that can serve women veterans and their children. Converting the vets hall to solar also is a task in the works. The utility bill, he said, is $1,000 or more every month, which is paid for by the hall members and donations from the community.

More than anything, however, O’Brien would like to establish a VA clinic in Rio Vista. One side would be for the veterans, and it would be supported by leasing the other side to a private medical provider.

He said he plans to go to Washington, D.C. to get the help of the local representatives to get the project done.

In the meantime, he and the other veterans at Post 178 will continue doing what they have always done: raise money to help veterans, and to provide scholar ships for high school graduates, and to support other groups like the scouts.

Much of that work, including a popular golf tournament, is done in the memory of Rio Vista’s Adam Kinser, an Army reservist with the 304th Psycho logical Operations Company, who was killed in action while serving in Afghanistan.

“On top of that, his wife was pregnant and he never got to see his son,” O’Brien said.

The boy was named Adam, after his father.

AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC

Noel O’Brien stands inside the Veterans Memorial Building in Rio Vista, Oct. 14.

Iraq Army veteran says therapy a must for returning soldiers

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

Monika Cuthill found her faith while serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army.

It was not because, as Cuthill described it, of “365 days of never feeling safe,” or the endless loud roars of rockets and mortars that still haunt her some 18 years later.

She cannot go into a coffee shop if the noise is too loud; and always she knows where the entrances and exits are, and who looks right and who seems out of place. And she still gets nervous when white vehicles pull up next to her at a light. That was the color of taxis and other vehicles used by the insurgents.

“I was a teacher here in Vacaville, but I couldn’t keep my job because of my PTSD,” Cuthill said.

Still, it would not be a surprise to learn soldiers might seek out divine shielding since, in this

case, the unit was never issued sapi plates – small arms protec tive inserts – for their vests, and traveled into hostile areas not in armored vehicles, but quite often open-topped humvees and other vehicles protected only by the camouflage netting draped over the tops.

No, Cuthill’s faith was “because I walked where Jesus walked . . . and all the stories of the ruins and places: How cool is that?”

The fourth-generation veteran visited a number of bibli cal sites while deployed, walking atop the walls of Abraham’s house, going to Babel and in her imagination could see the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. From those overwhelming expe riences she found her faith.

But she has found coping back at home difficult.

Cuthill has been in one form of therapy or another for 17 years.

See Therapy, Page 12

First Marine Corps League starts up in Solano County

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

The first Marine Corps League in Solano County was celebrated Sept. 7 at a dedication ceremony at the Veterans Memorial Building in Vacaville.

Chris Hansen, the daughter of twice-wounded World War II veteran Charles “Bud” Hallam, helped unveil the the display recognizing the group, which is named after her father.

Hallam was wounded in New Georgia, then served as an instructor at the Marine Raiders school until volunteer ing to return to service, and landed at Iwo Jima during the first wave. While helping bring an injured soldier to safety, he was shot in the arm, resulting in Hallam receiving a second

MARINES WELCOMED

All Marines in Solano County are eligible to be members of the Marine Corps League Charles “Bud” Hallam Detachment No. 1486. For more information, send an email to league Commandant Rory Nichols at MCLDet1486@ gmail.com. The group meets at 7 p.m. the first Wednesday of each month at the Vacaville veterans hall, 549 Merchant St.

Purple Heart.

Hallam died in October 2013. He was 91. He is buried at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery near Dixon.

The Hallam league held its first organizational meeting in June 2021 and received its charter Oct. 26, 2021.

The Marine Corps League,

in its essence, is a community service organization.

“A critical mission of the Marine Corps League is sup porting the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, Toys for Tots and many other schol arship and award programs. Locally, members will not only raise funds to help Marine fami lies but perform outreach to homeless veterans and help raise awareness of veteran suicide. The organization also serves as a resource to veterans who need access to benefits,” a resolution adopted by the Solano County Board of Supervisors states.

That resolution and one adopted by the Vacaville City Council were read as part of the ceremony. About two dozen

COURTESY PHOTOS

A group of photographs from Monica Cuthill’s time serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq.

ROBINSON KUNTZ/DAILY REPUBLIC FILE

Rory Nichols speaks at a dedication ceremony for the Marine Corps League Charles “Bud” Hallam Detatchment at the Vacaville Veterans Hall, Sept. 7.

Marines and other service veterans attended, along with some family members.

The league joins other veteransbased groups that call the Vacaville veterans hall home: The Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7244; Ameri can Legion Post 165; Disabled American Veterans Chapter 84; American Veterans Post 1776, and the VFW and American Legion auxiliaries.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the first Marine Corps League Federal Charter in 1937. The league is the only federally chartered Marine Corps-related veterans organization. It has about 60,000 members.

The dedication ceremony came a day before what would have been Hallam’s 100th birthday.

Members of the Marine Corps League Charles “Bud” Hallam Detatchment attend a dedication ceremony at the Vacaville Veterans Hall, Sept. 7.

Hammerschmidt finds life in Air Force – and Vacaville

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

While his brother built models of hot rods, David Hammer schmidt built model airplanes.

That is when the Hammer schmidt boys and the neighbor ing children of Spicer, Minnesota, weren’t busy playing whatever sport was in season –or more accurately, the sports the seasons allowed – and that included an eager rush to shovel the snow off the ice surface of the nearby lake for a game of hockey.

There are lots of lakes around Spicer, the most prominent being Green Lake to the immediate east of town, which blossoms with tourists when the warm weather invites fishermen and others attracted to the great outdoors.

“It still does not have a stoplight,” Hammerschmidt said of his hometown.

But Hammerschmidt was not dreaming about a life on the ground. He wanted to be a pilot.

So he joined the U.S. Air Force.

In the end, Col. Hammer schmidt, who served a year in Afghanistan, never did become a pilot. Instead, he made sure they would always be ready to fly.

“The very first one I worked on was the C-130,” Hammer schmidt said. He was stationed at Hurlburt Field in Florida, home to the Air Force’s special opera tions. He also worked on the AC-130 gun ship and the MH-53J helicopter.

“First impression was

excitement, just to be out on these aircraft and seeing them every day and going out on mis sions every night,” Hammer schmidt said.

He ended his 28-year career as the Maintenance Group com mander at Travis Air Force Base, his second assignment to the base. The community support for Travis convinced he and his wife, Kim, to set down roots in the area. They have a son who attends Vanden High School.

The journey began with a plan to serve four years and use

the GI Bill to go to school. Instead, it became a life choice.

“I’ve traveled more and seen more than I ever thought I would in the service,” Hammerschmidt said. “The biggest thing are the people. The people I worked with in the service are remarkable.”

His time includes a year in Afghanistan where he “served as an air adviser to the Afghans in Kandahar,” Hammerschmidt said.

His decorations include the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star and the Meritorious Service

Medal with five oak leaf clusters. The list includes 12 major awards and decorations.

Hammerschmidt instructed the Afghans on the maintenance and operational capabilities of the MI-17 Soviet-designed mili tary helicopter and the light attack combat C-208 Cessna Caravan. He said what he took most out of that experience was how good the American Air Force is.

“It very much makes you appreciate how talented the young (airmen) are in our ser vices,” he said.

Now that he is retired, and finding a place to call home, Hammerschmidt said he was still looking for ways to serve.

One of those avenues turned out to the Leaven Kids organization.

“It’s another aspect of service. These kids are young and malleable and they are looking for structure and leadership in their lives,” Hammerschmidt said.

He said the reward comes when he sees the confidence in those young people grow.

But it is also rewarding, he said, to support communities that support Travis Air Force Base.

“Travis is just an incredible base, indispensable for the (Department of Defense),” said Hammerschmidt, adding it is becoming even more important as so much military focus is on the Pacific.

“The whole surrounding area and support of the base and per sonnel is great.”

AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC

David Hammerschmidt stands at Journey Coffee in downtown Vacaville, Oct. 19.

‘I’ve traveled more and seen more than I ever thought I would in the service. The biggest thing are the people. The people I worked with in the service are remarkable.’

— DAVID HAMMERSCHMIDT

Heavy equipment mechanic finds calling as ‘therapist’ in Marines, State Guard

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

Seeking mental health services in the Marine Corps, at least at the time, was not exactly an accepted choice.

“Even though I didn’t think of it at the time, the standing order was if you want to cry, go see Decker,” as in Matthew Decker, a heavy equipment mechanic who had been working on his sociology degree when he and about five or six others from his unit – all mechanics – were deployed to Iraq.

In addition to his skills as a mechanic, he was asked about other qualifications and talents he might have. He mentioned he had started his sociology degree, adding he thinks that translated to psychology, and he was soon made platoon counselor.

“It was a tough role because I didn’t know what I was doing,” said Decker, and he was doing it in Iraq. He is thank ful, and truthfully a bit amazed, that he never lost anyone, and more than a few talked about suicide.

Others discussed family back home, and a host of other issues.

Providing Marines with a quiet and safe place to unload, as it turned out, proved to be great training for Decker, who finished his bachelor’s degree in sociology at Arizona State, earned a master’s in clinical social work at USC, and one month before Covid-19 shut down the state, he founded E5 Therapy in a Suisun City office building.

“Not a really great time to start a mental health facility,” he said.

“I had sold my car and paid for the electronics I needed (laptop, etc) and two months rent,” the 38-year-old Decker said.

E5 is the rank designation for ser geant, and Decker said that is where the work is done. He left the Marines as a sergeant.

Before that, he worked for Veterans

Affairs, including under the tutelage of Jeff Jewell, a longtime veterans advo cate and service provider in Vacaville. Decker’s work included individuals who had been incarcerated or going through the system, and still does now.

He considers the one person he was unable to get into the military diversion program and a decision he thought was born of the judge’s pure hubris, as a

true failure. He did, however, keep the man out of jail, though it came with costly fines.

Thankfully, he notes, has had far more victories. The most common issue is post-traumatic stress disorder, but he also sees clients dealing with military sexual conduct issues.

Therapy

From Page 9

Currently, she is part of a group and receives one-on-one therapy as well.

“I am getting better,” said Cuthill, who easily finds humor and her own laugh. She jokes that she can’t speak English anymore, only Marines, and the salty, hard-edged exchanges are evident enough. She is worried what affects her post-traumatic stress disor der has had and is having on her four

“My

kids are resilient, but they are

Like most combat soldiers Cuthill knows, she is divorced, though remarried.

Cuthill is particularly concerned about the veterans who do not take the therapy seri ously enough to attend on a regular basis, or those who have stopped coming altogether.

Just a glimpse at a photograph of Staff Sgt. Carlos Avila brings her to tears. He was a staff sergeant in the same platoon and took

“It’s just messed up all over,” Cuthill said. It was her mother who saw the PTSD symptoms manifest themselves, something her mother also dealt with when Cuthill’s father, Miguel Monte, returned after two tours in Vietnam. He was a 23-year Army

“I’m an Army brat. I was born on the East Coast and moved west. We moved every two or three years, wherever the Army took us,”

Cuthill’s military career actually started in the Marine Corps, serving from 1997 to 2001. She had barely been home for a few months when 9/11 happened. She looked to reenlist in the Marines, but did not qualify. The Air Force would not take her, either. So she joined the Army. She was sent to Iraq in 2003.

She had been trained as a driver, learning to navigate 5-ton monsters and big rigs during Marine Corps and Army training, but while deployed, she never got behind a wheel. Her job was logistics and trying to get what was needed where it was needed.

“The Marine Corps’ emphasis is on getting ready for combat, and the Army’s emphasis was on doing your job well in combat,” Cuthill said.

Her latest coping mechanism is writing; reading some of her work that compares vet erans to shelter dogs, and the need for a safe, loving home.

“It helps,” she said. “I am getting better.”

Now her creative side is seeking out poetry, too.

AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC

Matthew Decker, a clinical social worker/therapist, founded E5 Therapy in Suisun City.

Therapist

From Page 12

Much of his work also involves the use of emotional support pets, and in fact, he is housing a dog that belongs to a client who is working through some issues. The dogs, he said, bring no judgments.

He also works with family members and others close to his clients – not all of whom are military, but the vast majority of whom are or have ties to law enforce ment, first responders and related fields.

And he takes great pride in the fact he does not wait for a government agency or insurance company to tell him it is OK to begin treatment. His nonprofit accepts donations, all of which goes directly to client services.

Decker now has a staff of five, four of whom are therapists as well. He also has an intern.

Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Decker decided to join the Marine Corps because he was tired of school, and more than a little afraid of failing at college. So he enlisted. That was 2002.

He would serve until 2008, including a 2006-07 deployment in Iraq. Decker said it was 115 degrees on the flight line when he landed at 2 a.m., and the thermometer in the bunker where he worked the next day showed 145 degrees.

“I was a heavy equipment mechanic,” Decker said.

He quickly learned the sounds of incoming mortar shells.

“Our base got bombed a lot . . . because we were stationed at the primary logistics hub of the Al Anbar region,” he said. The province is in western Iraq and shares borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Decker still wears a uniform, but it is not in the reserves or National Guard.

He is a first lieutenant in the California State Guard, a component of the Califor nia National Guard. It is a volunteer orga nization that supports the Army and Air national guard units.

Decker said he struggles with being called “sir,” because he remains an enlisted man at heart.

He and his wife, Laura, have a 5-yearold, but in August they lost their daughter to leukemia. She was 2.

Gulf War veteran makes service to other vets his life’s calling

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

Alfred Sims didn’t want anything to do with Veterans Affairs after his first experience with the organization following his return from Iraq.

Now he heads one of the most success ful county veterans help offices in California.

A lot changed from March 1991, when he returned to Detroit and was given a kind of brushoff from the VA, to late March of this year when he was hired to replace Ted Puntillo as the director of the Solano County Veteran Services.

Sims served in the Army from 1989 to 1991, including nine months in combat: seven months in Saudi Arabia and two months in Iraq and Kuwait.

It’s been a journey that really started with a family commitment to military service; watching two of his Army unit members die in ways that never should have happened; a distaste for veterans assistance; and a rebirth of commitment learned in the public and private sectors.

Sims was born in Detroit, but as a mili tary brat, he followed his stepfather’s travels from one Air Force base to another, including oversea assignments.

But it wasn’t just his stepfather who influenced his decision to enlist in the Army at the age of 17. His own father was in the Navy, and his grandfather, uncles, cousins and others had all worn one service uniform or another.

His sister and her husband are in the Air Force, and they would add a signifi cant massage to his post-military life.

“I come from a big military family. We pretty much covered all the services except for the Space Force, but give us a couple of years. That’s kind of new,” Sims said in his fourth-floor county office, over looking the county quad where children run through the fountain jets to stay cool.

“So I always knew I would join the mil itary, but I would say it was probably an expectation, too.”

His first attempt to wear the uniform was with the Air Force, but there was an

growing up, little surprised Sims about military life.

“The one thing that really surprised me was the war,” Sims said. “I was really expecting peacetime, so when I went to the Gulf, it was a shock.”

Another surprise came from members of his unit as it awaited orders in Nurem berg, Germany. More than a few were talking about refusing to go, which Sims struggled to understand. But there was really very little time to think about it as deployment came in a matter of two to

three weeks after the first call to get

“I was only 18, but I knew part of the deal in a volunteer service, and when you volunteered, you have an expectation you may have to go to war,” Sims said.

He said had he known he would be sent to a war zone, it would not have changed his mind about enlisting. Still, the experi ence of fighting in a war – even as a radio operator who never fired a weapon while in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, 502nd Military Intelligence Company, though the unit took fire – left its marks on Sims.

“I was scared, but I was young, so I

was in shock,” Sims said. “If you want to talk about misery, go to the middle of a desert and live in a tent for months.”

Even the flies added to the misery.

“I didn’t even know flies could be that aggressive,” he said, involuntarily waving his hands about his face as if under attack again.

“I had a ser geant from the Deep South and he would let the flies congregate on his eyes and nose where there is mois ture,” said Sims, adding that he would tell the others they just need to put up with it, but Sims admits he never could, which brought great amusement to the sergeant.

But the more lasting memories are the deaths of two unit members. The first stepped on a “toe-popper,” which are cluster explosives Americans used to clear a path into a battle area. They were supposed to be cleared away before his unit came through.

The other was a member of the mili tary police who traveled with the cavalry unit. He was accidentally shot when his partner was clearing his .45-caliber handgun, but had it pointed toward the soldier.

“I was playing volleyball. I was really happy,” said Sims, the war nearly over. “He got hit, and my friend is trying to give him medical aid, but we needed a doctor.”

So Sims took off running to a nearby regimental support squadron, calling out for a doctor. But the physician would not follow Sims back, waiting instead for his jeep to arrive. Sims, however, ran back.

By the time the doctor got over to where the wounded man was lying, it was

A photograph of Alfred Sims when he served in the United States Army is on display in his office in Fairfield.

AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC PHOTOS

Alfred Sims, an Army combat veteran, is the Veteran Services director for Solano.

Brainerd found retirement in Rio Vista after Navy; American Legion in retirement

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

One of Robert Brainerd’s duties in Vietnam was passing out money – lots of it.

“The last six months of my year in country I was the disbursement officer,” Brainerd said, adding he handled $25 million in transactions during that time.

That was during the first of two deployments to Vietnam for the Navy veteran, who spent nearly seven years in active duty (1965 to 1971) and another 21 years in the reserves (1971-1992).

It was the result of a calcu lated plan to avoid the worst of the inevitable for a young man during the 1960s.

“I was in college and I thought if Vietnam was going strong, I wanted to do what I wanted and not what the military wanted. So I did some research on the Navy and decided I wanted to be an officer and a supply officer,” Brainerd said.

That is what he told the recruiter, and not long after that, he was in Newport, Rhode Island, learning to be a supply officer. It was during his nine months of training there that a submarine representative came looking for men.

“I’m a little claustrophobic,” Brainerd joked, but ultimately, he was among the 39 of 79 volun teers who was headed to Vietnam, just not in a submarine.

The experience includes a memorable flight in a helicopter.

“I was on a gunship with two 250-caliber machine guns on either side and I looked down and there was a convoy and they were firing away into the hill sides,” Brainerd said.

His ride engaged just that quickly.

He quickly noted, though, he had an uncle who was in the Battle of the Bulge.

Brainerd was mostly sta tioned in Da Nang, but his duties took him to various locations, including Khe Sanh, the site of a fierce months-long battle that took place to protect a base that would soon after be dismantled. It is also an end point to the 466mile Ho Chi Minh Trail.

He would later serve on the USS Goldsborough, a guided missile destroyer, that provided offshore support to various missions.

Brainerd would eventually land in the Bay Area, and joined the Navy Reserve, living near

the Alameda Air Station and assigned to an intelligence unit. He also would work on Treasure Island.

“The admiral in charge of all the intelligence units across the nation was there at Alameda, and I was on his staff,” Brainerd said.

Meanwhile, he had to make a living, and found work in the insurance industry.

“I began working . . . in liabil ity claims,” said Brainerd, adding that much of the work focused on longshoremen.

“I handled several of the largest companies and . . . then I became a hearing officer,” he said, adding that was “very inter esting work” and led him to han dling asbestos exposure cases.

Asbestos was banned from

use starting in the 1970s, but it was prevalent and used in many different industries, including home construction. So there was a lot of it out in the work world, and an odd exception was part of the ban.

“What they (regulators) said was you can’t use asbestos, but if you had asbestos products (already), go ahead and use them up,” Brainerd said. That just made his caseload bigger and his life more hectic.

In the early 2000s, he began thinking about retirement, and started looking at different locations. One of them was Trilogy outside Rio Vista.

“My wife (Peggy) said she was retiring, and I said, ‘Well, if you are retiring, I’m retiring.’ ”

he quipped.

So in 2004, they did, and moved to Solano County.

“I wanted to go someplace close to a military base (for medical and services), and of course, we have Travis,” Brain erd said.

The couple has one son and three grandchildren. His grand daughter is in junior high, and he has one grandson who is in his high school’s ROTC program in Brentwood. Another grandson also was involved in the ROTC, graduated and attends the Uni versity of North Dakota, where he is part of the air program.

“He wants to be a pilot,” Brainerd said.

After moving to Rio Vista, Brainerd quickly got involved in the local American Legion post, having already been a lifetime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was named commander of Post 178 in 2012.

He said there were only about 40 members at the time, and maybe 10 or 15 were very active. He wanted to build that up. While he does not take credit for the growth since then, there are about 270 members today. And he has even become more involved as well.

Brainerd called the veterans home built next to the post “a big deal,” and is excited about the prospect of building a second.

But more than anything, he said the American Legion gives him a social network with others with similar backgrounds, and the opportunity to help other vet erans, too.

“If you have disabilities, we will help you file your claims with the Veterans Administration,” Brainerd said, making ref erence to the Department of Veterans Affairs. “But mostly . . . they can keep up their military camaraderie.”

AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC

Robert Brainerd stands inside the Veterans Memorial Building in Rio Vista, Oct. 14.

Solano home to resting places of Medal of Honor recipients

IAN THOMPSON ITHOMPSON@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

One Fairfield man earned the Medal of Honor nursing his crippled B-17 bomber home; a Solano County dis trict attorney earned it for continuing to carry his regiment’s colors despite the grievous wound he suffered at the Battle of the Wilderness; and a Benicia soldier earned it standing alongside Buffalo Bill Cody during an attack on a Sioux encampment.

Two of the Medal of Honor recipients earned theirs in Solano County. They were Mare Island Navy men who leaped into the water on separate occasions to save drowning shipmates.

Solano County has been home or is the final resting place for six recipients: one Air Force, one Army, one Marine Corps and three Navy. Here are their stories:

Edward S. Michael

Seven crew members of the badly shot up B-17, the Bertie Lee, had already jumped on April 10, 1944, when pilot 1st Lt. Edward Michael found Bombardier 2nd Lt. John Leiber still in the nose, firing on an attacking German FW-190 fighter, which disintegrated when he hit it.

Michael ordered Leiber to jump only to be told “my parachute is no good with a 20-milli meter shell hole in it,” according to the account of the mission printed in the 1958 Army and Many Legion of Valor newsletter.

Michael told Leiber to take his parachute and jump only to have Leiber refuse, saying “if we can’t both jump, we’ll go down together,” Michael remembered him saying in a Daily

See Medal, Page 25

Former Marine finds wartime experiences in everyday life

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

Fathers and mothers pleaded for the passing Marines to save their homes, to save their children.

It is a lasting memory of Jason Quintero’s experience in Kuwait during Desert Storm, that and hiding out in the burning oil fields, breathing in the caustic air and taking back home cloth ing that was oil-stained with an oil stench.

“We were the first ones in; we were the point of the spear. We took the airport back,” Quintero said.

The memories of the Kuwaitis begging for help is an evocation he experienced when coordinating the Marine Corps Toys for Tots program in Oakland.

“I saw families who couldn’t afford a toy and lived in squalor. The condi tions were similar; the disparity was similar,” Quintero said.

But the experience of helping so soon after his war experience helped him, too.

Quintero sees a lot of life-and-death decisions playing out every day: in how local city councils deal with the homeless; and in the clients who depend on Pink Lemonade, the nonprofit he and his wife started to help cancer patients.

“I’ve seen life and death. I’ve seen the rape of women and children in Kuwait. I’ve seen the worst of mankind, and I’ve brought that home,” Quintero said.

Donna Quintero is a breast cancer survivor. Her recovery convinced the family to give back to others with Pink Lemonade. The couple has two children, a daughter and a son, both attend ing California State University, Sacramento.

Quintero is also taking the point for the Marine Corps League Detachment 1486 Toys for Tots program, working with the Travis Air Force Base

campaign. He was instrumental in forming the detachment, named after Charles “Bud” Hallam.

That obligation to serve likely

when he was just 6 months old, so he was raised in two households. Both his dad and his stepfather served in the Marine Corps.

Despite what he describes as a pretty good childhood, he said he was an angry adoles cent, eager to escape Vallejo and face his own challenges of being a Marine. He served from 1988 to 1999, leaving the Corps as a sergeant.

From Page 17

too late.

“He just looked down at him and said, ‘He’s gone.’ ”

“It always makes me very upset because of how it happened,” Sims said about the two deaths.

It took some time before Sims heard terms like war fatigue, and later, post-traumatic stress disorder. He didn’t know he needed to address some issues then, but his experiences help other veterans now.

Life back in the states did not start well for Sims, but when a civilian opportunity to return to Nuremberg came up, he went. The people there realized Sims needed some help, and they got it for him.

In 1997, Sims landed in Fairfield – and through some help from his sister and her husband who were stationed at Travis, Sims started on a new life’s path. That road took him to Genentech, which hired him for security.

That work, and with Genentech’s encourage ment, also helped him earn a master’s degree in security and emergency management at Buckinghamshire New University in England, which included three, three-week trips to the campus.

Then that path he started on after arriving in Fairfield eventually corkscrewed toward helping homeless veterans, being hired on in a Veterans Affairs housing program. He also met Puntillo along the way.

That relationship helped open doors to becoming eventually the Veteran Services director in San Francisco and then Fairfield, which despite less money, was doing the kind of work Sims knew he wanted to do.

That is evident in the story of an elderly woman he recently helped.

“About four weeks ago, I had a veteran’s kid come in. I said kid, but he was 72 and he was concerned about his mom, who was in her 90s,” Sims said.

started when the Berkeley-born, Vallejo- and Oakland-raised Quintero was in junior high school.

That is when he decided to join the military, in part, to honor his immi grant grandparents on his father’s side –from Mexico – and great-grandparents on his mother’s side – from Yugoslavia –who sacrificed so much to be part of this country.

Quintero’s mom and dad divorced

He started his career as a diesel mechanic assigned to an infantry division. He even manned a machine gun when trans porting weapons, ammunition and other equipment to the front lines.

“You had to have a mechanic . . . to make sure you got there,” Quintero said of the combat assignment.

“I didn’t know what to expect . . . . When you actually go out there, you don’t know how you are going to react.

There was some concern about the benefits she was receiving, and a possible scam.

So Sims went out to Laverne “Kitty” Rosen baum’s home, reviewed all the paperwork and made some adjustments, which put the women’s mind at ease.

He also learned that her late husband’s P-51 D Mustang, which John D. “Rosie” Rosenbaum flew in China during World War II, was being refurbished. It was named the “Miss Kitty III.”

More than that, Sims learned how valuable it can be for he and his staff to get out of the office and meet the veterans and their dependents where they live.

ROBINSON KUNTZ/DAILY REPUBLIC

Marine Corps veteran Jason Quintero.

‘I’ve seen life and death. I’ve seen the rape of women and children in Kuwait. I’ve seen the worst of mankind, and I’ve brought that home.’

— JASON QUINTERO

Army veteran saw joy, pain in eyes of soldiers returning from Nam

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

Susan Schwartz found her life in the Army. She also found she could shoot really straight.

“I qualified as a sharpshooter with an M16, and I attribute that to shooting with my dad in Mis souri out on the farm,” Schwartz said. The native of Orange moved east at an early age.

Schwartz admitted she was not particularly focused on what to do after high school, then her stepmother showed her a newspaper article about the opportu nities for women in the U.S. Army.

“The next thing I know, I’m at Fort McClellan, Oklahoma, in basic training,” Schwartz said. That was 1973. She reached the rank of sergeant by the time she was discharged in 1976.

Schwartz would ultimately end up at Fort Carson, south of Colorado Springs, Colorado, working at the transfer point for soldiers who were returning from the Vietnam War and heading back into civilian life.

“I saw the enthusiasm of them coming back, the joy; they just wanted to go home,” Schwartz said. “But you could see the pain their eyes – and that was the hard part.”

Although Schwartz said she did not talk to the soldiers very much, she could tell the pain was as much about how they were treated after landing in America as it was for whatever they expe rienced during the war.

“I don’t recall any conversa tions, just bits of this and that. It was so many years ago,” she said.

She does recall quite vividly, however, the soldiers’ reactions when they were told they had to stay at Fort Collins for a while to make up for AWOL time – absent without official leave.

“They were very angry,” Schwartz said.

And there were a lot of sol diers who had to do the AWOL time, the gist of which is they “were just trying to get the hell out of there,” when they left their units without permission.

Mostly, though, Schwartz remembers the joy they felt to be going home.

“I do recall a lot of people being very, very happy and that is what was fun about doing that job, because you were like giving them their life back,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz also experienced her own kind of joy at Fort Collins. It was there she met her husband, Mitchell, and the start of a life she truly loves.

“It’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” Schwartz said

about the Army. “Well, I shouldn’t have said that; I have two children.”

After the Army, they moved to Mitchell Schwartz’s home state of New York, and using the GI bill he returned to college to get his master’s degree. She also went back to college, but quickly real ized she still did not have a focus for that, so she raised her chil dren and ran day care services out of the family home.

The family moved to Solano County in 2005, and Susan Schwartz soon found herself vol unteering with the Boys & Girls Club, an experience she loved. She was named Volunteer of the Year in 2014.

She remembers one boy who was living in a very bad neigh borhood, but found security and some confidence at the club, and ultimately chose to go into the military. When he returned, he was a hero to the other children –and one in particular.

“He’s so proud. He came back in his uniform and his little sister ran up and hugged him and I knew he was going to be OK,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz no longer volunteers at the club as her work takes up a great deal of her time.

But she would encourage anyone who isn’t sure what to do next, or who is struggling in life, to consider the military.

trigger; are they going to run toward the enemy?” said Quin tero, adding you just rely on your training.

You don’t know how the men next to you are going to react. Are they going to pull the

Quintero thought about continuing his service but he wanted to get married and have a family, and he saw the effects of a married soldier being deployed

and leaving his loved ones behind. And he was especially wary of doing that if the deploy ment was back to a combat area.

That decision causes him some guilt, as 9/11 happened not long after leaving the Corps, and he knows the young recruits could have used his experience

where they were headed.

Quintero said he applies a lot of what he learned as a Marine to his profession as a leadership coach working for the University of California, Davis. Companies, municipalities and other organizations contract with UC Davis for his services to coach their

board members and executives.

Quintero also runs his own leadership development company.

“The military taught me the importance of leadership and how to be a strong leader and leadership values,” Quintero said.

ROBINSON KUNTZ/DAILY REPUBLIC

Susan Schwartz served in the U.S. Army from 1973 to 1976.

Veterans groups look to reconnect with service members leaving military

TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

There are fewer veterans working for veterans.

Darrol Prill, an Air Force veteran and past three-time commander at VFW Post 2333 in Suisun City and is still active in state-level organi zations, thinks the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other veterans groups can blame themselves for the decline in membership, explaining they lost two genera tions of American servicemen and -women by “insulting” those returning from Vietnam.

No, the members of the VFW, American Legion and others were not greeting the returning military personnel with protests, but Prill said it was not exactly a “welcome home” when it came to joining the various organizations.

“We have insulted so many of our Vietnam vets that so many would have nothing to with our organizations,” Prill said.

But it wasn’t just many of the Vietnam veterans who were lost, their children who went on to wear the uniform have no idea what the organizations are about, nor do they really care to know.

“The biggest problem in membership is legacy,” said Prill, who, after serving 20 years in active duty, has worked as a C-5 project officer in the civilian service at Travis Air Force Base. He said he talks to airmen about the topic frequently.

The American Legion, as an example, reports that in 1992 it had a global membership of 3.11 million, of which 166,242 were in California. By 2021, the membership had dropped to 1.69 million, with 86,201 in California.

Nestor Aliga, a retired colonel

who served in the U.S. Marine Corps and the Army, thinks the issue of lost membership is layered. He is a member of American Legion Post 603 and VFW Post 1123, both in Vallejo, as well as Disabled American Veterans Chapter 21.

For one thing, the volunteer service is much smaller than it was when there was a draft, so there are fewer men and women leaving the service. Additionally, portions of the veteran popula tion has died, including what is now more than 500 Vietnam-era

veterans each day.

And while Aliga agrees the veterans groups did not treat the Vietnam service members well, he thinks in a lot of ways, those Vietnam-era veterans who did join and took up the fight for ben efits have been very successful.

Maybe too successful, and the following generations may think the fight is over.

New veterans enjoy benefits other generations never did, or had to fight to get over many years. Aliga thinks those new veterans may not see the need to

be involved in advocating for other veterans when they enjoy so many benefits already.

“There were a lot of Vietnam veterans who had suffered a lot of inequities and injustices who fought for their benefits, and the younger veterans are reaping that success,” Aliga said. “We are victims of our own success.”

But Alega thinks the single biggest reasons for lost member ship is that young veterans leaving the service are simply busy with life: work and family. There does not seem to be

enough time.

“Even with me, when I was a young veteran, I had one, two even three jobs and taking care of my family,” Aliga said.

But there is still work to do, Aliga insists, so the military organizations need to do a better job of educating the service members who are transitioning out of active duty on why it is important to stay involved.

Aliga noted advocacy is still needed at the federal and state levels, and Prill said one of those that is critical is making sure veterans who are in hospitals, long-term care facilities and other care living situations are being treated properly and have all the services they need.

Prill said there is also impor tant work that is done at home to support military members and their families, as well as other veterans.

It can be as simple as helping a military spouse get groceries or medications or other needs when he or she is stuck at home with sick children; or making sure if a refrigerator blows up, a new one can be delivered. He said there are programs and funds to support all of that, but the organizations, including their auxiliaries, need bodies to carry out the tasks.

Each post typically has pro grams that support the commu nities they are in as well.

Aliga and Prill are quick to point out another benefit of being a member of a veterans group –camaraderie with men and women who understand what they went through while in the military and since they left the service.

“Being in an organization for military veterans, we can empa thize with what they are going through,” Aliga said.

ROBINSON KUNTZ/DAILY REPUBLIC FILE (2017)

Frederick Williams, of VFW Post 2333, salutes the grave of Warren Romary during a Memorial Day ceremony at Suisun-Fairfield Cemetery in Fairfield, May 29, 2017.

Medal

From Page 19

Republic interview. He died in Fair field in the mid-1990s.

Along with co-pilot 2nd Lt. Franklin Westberg, who had refused to leave the bomber before Michael, the three realized if they all wanted to survive, they would have to jetti son the burning incendiary bombs jammed in the bomb bay and get the crippled B-17 back to England.

It was an aerial battle against the odds that would see Michael awarded the Medal of Honor, an award that he strongly felt Leiber and Westberg also richly deserved.

Michael, an Illinois native, joined the Army in 1940 and was serving at Wheeler Field when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

“He and other members of his air base group were commended for their magnificent action in defending the barracks against the (Japanese) planes with their machine guns and rifles,” according to a War Depart ment press release.

Michael became an air cadet, was commissioned in 1943 and was sent to England to join the 8th Air Force and command the B-17 Bertie Lee, which was named after his first wife.

The target was the Baltic port of Stettin, now part of Poland.

An hour before they reached their target, a wave of about 150 German fighters plowed through the bomber formation, starting off the aerial battle. Soon the Bertie Lee was getting hammered by 22 mm cannon fire that tore up controls, smashed instruments, wounded Michael and one gunner and knocked the bomber out of formation.

The bomber lost 3,000 feet of ele vation before Michael could level it out. He was then told that the bomb bay and the 100-pound incendiary bombs it held were in flames.

Michael tried the bomb release and emergency bomb release, but they failed to work. That prompted Michael to order the crew to bail out. Seven of them did so. The wounded gunner was the last to leave.

That was when he was presented with Leiber’s dilemma.

Michael told Leiber if they were going to stay on the Bertie Lee, Leiber would have to kick the bombs out the bomb bay, which the slightly built man managed to do, balancing on the narrow catwalk between the bombs. However, the bomb bay did not close.

With most of its instruments knocked out, Michael and Westberg had to guess which direction England was, then dipped to treetop height after ground flak found the aircraft, peppering it and knock ing out the elevators.

The Bertie Lee made its way across northern Europe, scaring farmers and barely missing trees on one occasion. Along the way, they flew over a truck of German infantry, who opened fire on the plane, punching more holes in it.

The last German opposition came after the bomber managed to elude coastal flak and was over the North Sea. A German fighter further shot up the dodging bomber and only left after it had expended its ammu nition, Michael figured.

Crossing the coast, Michael managed to find the Royal Air Force field at Grimsby. He took the bomber around the field several times, pulling off the approach each time because he had to get it just right due to all the battle damage and the open bomb bay doors.

Finally, he brought the Bertie Lee in, skidding along on the tips of the bomb bay doors before the plane settled onto the turf in what Royal Air Force watchers later described as the most perfect crash landing they had ever seen.

Only after the B-17 came to a rest and Michael and the other two men staggered out did he faint from the loss of blood.

When asked about the rest of the aircrew, from his stretcher, Michael remembered answering, “They’re gone. I ordered them to bail out. I never thought we would live to get back here. Oh God, what am I going to tell their families.”

It was not until the day before he was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1954 that he learned that the last crew member, whose fate was in doubt, survived captivity, like the

other six.

Michael settled in Fairfield after he retired in 1971 as a lieutenant colonel. Neighbors informally named the cul-de-sac after him, putting a small street sign above the official Fairfield one. He died in 1994 and is buried in Utah.

Abraham J. Buckles

One of Solano County’s early district attorneys was also a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient who served with the famous Iron Brigade through out much of the war.

Born in Muncie, Indiana, Abraham J. Buckles was only 15 when he joined the 19th Indiana Vol unteers, which became part of the Iron Brigade in 1861, after the war started.

This iron-willed Indiana man did not let any wounds or capture stop him from serving.

Buckles got wounded in the thigh and captured at the Second Battle of Bull Run, escaping not long after. He was wounded in the right shoulder at Gettysburg after rescuing the regiment’s colors, and could not carry a knapsack after that.

On returning to the regiment, he was made color bearer and was car rying the flag when he was griev ously wounded in the body at The Wilderness. The Army surgeon was so certain Buckles was dying, the young man was reported as “killed in the Wilderness.”

It was for this action that he was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1893.

“Though suffering from an open wound, carried the regimental colors until again wounded,” the citation read.

Buckles talked about what hap pened in a Solano Republican article. He said that as his regiment marched toward the Confederates in The Wilderness, Buckles stripped his shirt off long enough to remove some of the bone fragments that still irritated him from his injury in Gettysburg and then unfurled the flag.

When his regiment was pressed by the Confederates, “the only pos sible safety lay in a charge,” Buckles said in the article. “Waving the flag above my head, I called on the boys to follow.”

Buckles was soon wounded and another soldier, John Divelbus, picked up the flag “and was almost immediately killed.”

After making a surprising recov ery, Buckles returned to his regi ment, which had been combined with the 20th Indiana due to losses, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He was wounded in the knee at the Battle of Hatcher’s Run on March 25, 1865, which resulted in the amputation of his right leg. Only then was he discharged from service, 15 days before Lee surren dered at Appomattox, all before Buckles turned 20.

After the war, he became a teacher, was admitted to the Indiana Bar in 1875 and moved to Dixon. He was elected Solano County district attorney in 1879 and kept that posi tion until 1884 when he was named Superior Court judge for Solano County. After a stint as judge in the state Court of Appeal, Third Appel late District, he returned to Solano County Superior Court where he served until he died Jan. 9, 1915

Alexander Parker

Alexander Parker, a Scottish immigrant, joined the Navy and served for 47 years from the Ameri can Civil War to the Spanish-Ameri can War, dying on Oct. 2, 1900, at age 68, four months after he retired.

While serving as a boatswain’s mate on the USS Portsmouth at Mare Island Naval Shipyard on July 25, 1876, he attempted to save a fellow sailor from drowning. He was awarded the Medal of Honor two weeks later.

He is buried in the Mare Island Cemetery.

Henry Thompson

Two years after Parker’s action, Seaman Henry Thompson was serving at Mare Island when he rescued another sailor from downing on June 27, 1878, and was awarded the Medal of Honor.

James Cooney

James Cooney, an Irish immi grant, joined the Marine Corps in August 1889 and was part of the Marine contingent sent to China during the Boxer Rebellion, joining an allied army that was going to push its way through the Boxers to relieve the besieged foreign lega tion in Peking.

Cooney and four other Marines fought off an attack by Boxers and Imperial Chinese troops near Tiens tin, China, until they were reinforced by an Army unit.

“In the presence of the enemy during the battle near Tienstin, China, on July 13, 1900, Cooney dis tinguished himself by meritorious conduct,” his citation read.

Cooney died while stationed at Mare Island on March 14, 1900, and is buried in the Mare Island Cemetery.

William Halford

English immigrant William Halford was serving as a coxswain aboard the sidewheel steamer USS Saginaw in 1870 when it was ordered to Midway Island to survey and deepen the entrance to Mid way’s lagoon.

The Saginaw was on its way back when it detoured to Kure Atoll to see if anyone was shipwrecked, only to get shipwrecked itself offshore, hitting a reef and sinking.

Halford was one of five men sent out in a small boat to reach the Hawaiian Islands far to the south west. A month later, the five men managed to reach Kanai, got caught in the breakers and capsized. Only Halford managed to struggle ashore alive, and with a crushed knee. He made his way to Honolulu to report the Saginaw’s fate. King Kame hameha V sent a ship to collect the crew.

Halford not only was awarded the Medal of Honor, but also was pro moted to gunner. He stayed in the Navy until 1903, retiring after 34 years of service. The need for experienced officers got him put back on active duty for World War I. He died Feb. 7, 1919, and is buried in the Mare Island Cemetery. The destroyer USS Halford was named after him in 1941.

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