I am appreciative that the online-only magazine of The Military Order of the Purple Heart features my story on page 19 of the PDF. The article has excerpts from the book and a couple of pictures.
But I’m disappointed that the text I sent was modified & truncated. The article ends in the middle of a sentence. Two of the four pictures are mis-captioned. Sidebar text that should have been a short author bio was jumbled in with the body of the article.
The book’s website URL was left out of the article. The website, which you are currently reading, has more pictures (properly captioned), this blog, and ordering information.
I was dicharged from the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Augusta, GA and travelled home to my family at Fort Rucker, AL. With the help of my Fancy Cane, I shuffled proudly from the airplane to the terminal at the Dothan Regional Airport.
It had been 97 days since an IED changed my day, and my life. I still had months of physical therapy ahead of me, but now I was Home.
My Miller Five, plus the Hammonds’ girls. 🙂The Millers, the Hammonds, Colonel McCurry, Major Alexander, and Mrs Griffith.A close-up of my Fancy Cane.
I fly the Star Spangled Banner at the house nearly every day of the year.
The 2 days of exception are today, National Purple Heart Day, and on September 7th, the anniversary of when I earned my Purple Heart Medal in 2013 near Shindand Air Base, Afghanistan.
On this day in 2015, I received my DD 214, Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty.
I left the house that morning with my binder of retirement-related documents & forms and went to Fort Rucker’s Soldier Service Center for the final step to outprocess.
My actual last day in the Army was June 30th, but between this day and then I was on terminal leave (using up my vacation days).
After twenty years as a Soldier, this was the last day I wore a duty uniform. The uniform had changed during my time in service, I started in BDU’s and green one-piece flightsuits, transitioned to ACU’s and the associated flight uniform, and wore OCP while deployed to Afghanistan.
April 22, 2015
#FiveYearsAgo
#AlmostRetired
#Pamir62
@Pamir_62
On this day in 2015, I had my final flight as an Army Aviator. My friend CW4 Dan Hiestand was able to get a flight approved with me in a TH-67, the same kind of aircraft I first flew as an Army Aviator in training (nearly 19 years earlier to the day) on February 20, 1996.
It was great to have my final flight with Dan. We have known each other for many years; we had previously served together at Fort Rucker as Kiowa Warrior instructors (2004-2005), we flew and served together in Alaska and deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom with 6-17 Cavalry (2008-2009), and we served and flew together in Afghanistan as MD530 instructors (2013).
I was incredibly lucky that in my final months before retirement, I had been afforded the opportunity to have a final flight in each of the Army aircraft I flew during my career. The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, the UH-72 Lakota, the OH-58C Kiowa, and the TH-67 Creek. I suppose my final flight in the MD530 was in Afghanistan.
I looked in my logbook and could not find this exact tail number from my flight school days. But it is possible I flew it during my training, there are quite a few entries that are without tail number entries in my logbook from 1996.
