It was a good crowd at the annual 2023 Northwest College Rodeo Winter Social—larger than past gatherings it seemed. This annual event is always crowded, but in this year’s version we were really packed in at the Cody, Wyoming Auditorium.
Like most social events, whether it be an art exhibit opening or a party that nearly fills the main rooms of a house, I was feeling awkward—just like the other Winter Socials I’ve attended. Too many people in one place and I don’t know where to be. To make things worse, I didn’t even have a cowboy hat to don and thus, fit in.
When I finally decided on a place to sit—with some fellow employees from the college, I was still feeling awkward. This group included the college President and her husband, one of the Board of Trustees, the director of Human Resources, a counselor, and finally an employee from the Financial Aid office that I’d never met, or even seen before. And so, there I was amongst this group,—a graphic design instructor caught up in my five classes per semester routine—feeling like I had nothing to contribute to most of the things they were talking about.
Before long, the MC asked us all to rise from our tightly confined places for the national anthem. As we all attempted to stand at the same time, I was reminded of the clumsy awkwardness of trying to exit a crowded airplane that just landed. You just can’t help but to make contact with others around you. I might as well have gone spelunking.
However, once I was on my feet—several seconds into the National Anthem—a calm came over me. I’ve experienced this before during the playing of the National Anthem at other events. With my eyes fixed on the Flag, thoughts of my father came to me. In particular his service in the U.S. Navy as an “aviation ordnanceman” (i.e., AOM-2).
The first thing I usually think about is in the telling of his first night as a seaman at boot camp in Illinois. My father was eager to join the armed services not only because he wanted to serve his country in the height of World War II, but also because he just wanted to get out of Akron—the city where he had spent his entire life up to that point. He was just looking for an adventure and joining the Navy was his ticket to get out of town.
As he lay on his bunk in the darkened barracks full of young men like himself, he thought, “Man, this is great!” At the same time, in the darkness, he could hear some of the other men weeping.
Another story that he shared with me from his time in the Navy was when he was on the aircraft carrier Valley Forge (CV-45) during the Korean War. Because they were in a war zone, when they were preparing the planes for upcoming missions, they often did so in the cover of darkness before dawn. The planes were tightly packed on the deck of the carrier and as a member of the ordnance crew, that often required them to step around parts of the various aircraft that were secured near the edge of the deck. Sometimes they would hold on to a part of the aircraft to step out and over the deck to get around it with the dark, cold waters waiting below. He told me that if one were to slip and fall into the sea during such times, no one would ever know about it until it was way too late.
I never served in the military, but every time I stand at attention for the National Anthem, I remember my father and his stories that instilled a modest sense of pride in our country, but a far greater pride in him, Danny Beecher Tyree.
mdt1960 