L'Anse Creuse High School
Class Of 1970

Military Service

                                                

 

To Honor Classmates That Served

Our Country...

Dale Alexander  United States Army

John Behnke  United States Marines

Cindy Bigford Shaw  United States Air Force Reserves

Billie Black Deke  United States Navy

Shan Cousrouf United States Air Force Aerospace

Rescue & Recovery Service 

Mike Gerlach  United States Army 

Warren S. Graber  United States Army

Steve Hanks  United States Army

Andrew Harris  United States Air Force

Dan Hill  United States Air Force

Dennis Hill  United States Air Force (1974-1996) Retired

Dennis Hodnett  United States Army

Janet Lawrence  United States Navy

George Marsack  United States Marine Corps

Michael G. Mercier  United States Army

Dan Mertens  United States Navy

Ken Miller  United States Air Force Reserves, Retired

Don Moss  United States Marine Corps

Harry G Pardon  United States Air Force

Susan Robertson Jeskie  United States Air Force

John Ross  United States Army JAGC LTC (Active, 1977- 1980)

United States Reserves (1981- 2001)

Mark L. Sanborn  United States Navy Ready Reserve

Eric Scarborough  United States Marines

Vernon E. Simmers  United States Air Force

Steven W. Spranger  United States Army, Retired

Frank Van Bael  United States Air Force Reserve

Robert G. Watko  United States Army 

 

Please let me know if I have missed any classmates.  If you know of a classmate that has passed and that served, please let me know, so their name can be listed.

 

 

Thank you to all of our veterans who have served.

Words cannot express our deepest appreciation for your service

to protect this great country.

 

 

Vernon Simmers 1971

I was in the Air Force from Dec 1970 thru Dec 1974. The picture above was on the porch of my parents home in Mount Clemens where we lived for over 30 years. This picture was taken when I was home on leave prior to leaving to Shepard Air Force base for training.  I spend the last 2 years of my enlistment stationed at Aviono Italy which was a NATO base in the Tactical Air Command.

 

George Marsack  1974

 

Don Moss

This photo was taken right out of high school when I joined the Marines.

 

 

 

Frank Van Bael  United States Air Force Reserve

1970 with wife Marilyn

 

 

 

 

 

John Ross 1977 Manhattan, Kansas

 

 

 

 

Military Stories and Information

 

From George Marsack

Regarding my service time, Don Moss and I enlisted on the buddy system ('71), and went through basic training at Parris Island, S. Carolina.  After graduation from basic training, we were assigned separate specialist training, and I have not seen him since, although we do communicate from time to time, and like to stay in touch.

 

 

From John Ross

Although I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the service—and, if I had it all to do over again, I’d have gone in the Marines right out of high school, despite/or because of the pendency of Vietnam—it was a pretty uneventful career, i.e., no combat, no medals of valor, etc. By the time I graduated from law school and got a direct  commission in the Army JAG Corps (even then, I would have gone into the Marines or Navy, but for some reason the Marines/Navy were only offering a commission as a 1^st Lieutenant/Lieutenant JG, whereas the Army offered a commission as a Captain—which made a couple hundred bucks per month difference in pay) Vietnam was over. Nobody wanted to wear a military uniform at the time. The service was an all-volunteer force, and they had lowered the recruiting standards in order to meet recruiting quotas to the point where a person didn’t even need a HS diploma to enlist. Consequently, the average private had a 10^th grade education and less than stellar backgrounds. It made for great courts-martial experience, because these mostly inner city recruits from the hood to whom recruiters had promised the moon, sun, and stars committed a lot of crime.

 

At Fort Riley, Kansas, I spent most of my 3 ½ years on active duty either prosecuting or defending soldiers at courts martial, with a 100% conviction rate as a prosecutor, and 14 acquittals in 21 contested trials as a defense counsel.

 

I would have stayed in the Army if I would have been able to swing a better second assignment. But, my first wife and I wanted to go back to Washington, D.C./northern Virginia. We had fallen in love with northern Virginia because the first place the Army sends a new JAGC officer is the JAG School, located on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville, Virginia—God’s/Jefferson’s country (Jefferson designed most of the original buildings at the University of Virginia, and Monticello sits on top of a mountain just outside Charlottesville, overlooking the city). But, the Army had other plans. They were going to send 65 miles closer to Kansas City to be defense counsel at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where I would have been representing prisoners who had already been convicted.

 

So, I left active duty and landed a job in Washington as a civilian lawyer for the Army CID (Criminal Investigation Division) Command. (If you’re an NCIS fan on TV, you know about Mark Harmon and NCIS. CID is the Army’s equivalent of NCIS—and, back then, it was simply NIS for Naval Investigative Service.) But, I stayed active in the Reserves and did two weeks of active duty every summer in various assignments: as a defense appellate attorney appealing court-martial convictions; as a government appellate attorney defending such appeals; as a military judge at Fort Bragg; as acting head of the Criminal Law Division at Fort Hood, Texas; and acting head of Legal Assistance at Fort Hood, drafting Wills and helping soldiers put their affairs in order before shipping out for the first Gulf War.

 

Sadly/ironically, I’ll never collect any retired pay. In order to qualify for retirement pay, one has to have 20 “good” years in the military. To constitute a qualifying year, a soldier has to earn at least 50 retirement points in a calendar year. You get a retirement point for every day you’re on active duty. So, for my first 3 ½ years on active duty, I had 4 qualifying years. When I went into the Reserves, I got a point for each day of my two week summer training and also earned points by taking military correspondence courses which comprised military programs, like the Command and General Staff College, and the Military Judges’ Course, etc. So, for most years in the Reserves, I earned my minimum 50 points. But, there were a few years where with trying to manage a civilian law practice, being married and trying to raise four kids, there were a few years in which I simply didn’t have the time to take the courses/serve the active duty time necessary to get 50 points. I assumed Reserve life went on indefinitely and that I could just make up those years on the back end. Then in 2001—exactly 20 years after going into the Reserves—I unexpectedly received my honorable discharge papers in the mail, discovering that the military expects you to get 50 points each year and you’re only given 20 years in which to do it. So, I was discharged as a Lieutenant Colonel with 17 ½ qualifying years—2 ½ years short of qualifying for retirement pay.

 

But, I still wear my uniform on occasion—such as to my uncle’s funeral back in Mt. Clemens several years ago. He had served as a sergeant in Patton’s army. And even though I don’t qualify for retirement pay, after 23 years on active duty and in the Reserve, I often wear a “Retired Army” baseball cap.

 

My dad (Clarence Ross) served in the Navy in WWII for a short time, before being medically discharged.

 

My step father (Ray Willis) served on an LST (officially Landing Ship Tank; unofficially among sailors Long Slow Target) in both the European Theater shuttling troops and supplies across the English Channel after D-Day and in the Pacific, including the battle of Okinawa.

 

A few months back, I started to do genealogical research on my family roots, and my maternal great great grandfather served in a Pennsylvania infantry regiment, including fighting at Gettysburg. Attached is a photo of him at the 50^th anniversary/reunion of the battle in 1913. He’s the guy in the center of the photo with the long beard.

I’ve also discovered I have a great-great-great grandfather (John Milliron) who served in the War of 1812—but, LOL, according to records after a time he deserted and went home to his family.

 

John Ross