Where did you serve and what did you do?
Desert Storm with Second Armored Division. I was a tank commander and platoon sergeant at the time.
How are you #StillServing?
2020 was a challenge for everyone. So let’s start the new year with a story with a good ending.
A couple of months after the pandemic started, Marine Veteran Lloyd Bowling moved to Dublin, GA and admitted himself to the Shamrock nursing home so he could receive treatments for service-related cancer from the VA medical center. Unfortunately, on 31 October 2020, Lloyd Bowling lost the battle and reported for the final roll call.
To make matters worse, for whatever reason, he had no family. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, we didn’t know him. I, myself, never even met him. He would have been placed in boot hill, had it not been an employee at the nursing home who let us know about the situation.
We all agreed that no veteran, even a Marine, goes to boot hill on our watch. With the help of some very good people at the Shamrock nursing home, Carl Vinson VA Medical Center, the American Legion and the VFW, we were able to get him a proper cremation and ceremony.
On Tuesday morning, 12 January, Marine Veteran Jack Fisher and I escorted Marine Veteran Lloyd Bowling to his final rest at the Georgia Veterans War Cemetery in Milledgeville, Georgia.
Dying for our country is not the worst fate for a veteran, but being forgotten is. Many thanks to the people in the above-mentioned organizations, that made sure that this Marine would not be forgotten.
Semper Fi Marine. Rest easy. We have the watch.
For God and Country
Why do you do it?
It was simply the right thing to do.