DAZE WORK: Old war stories can hit close to home

It’s amazing sometimes what you can find out about people.

I’ve always enjoyed covering the annual Quilts of Honor program put on by the ladies of the One Stitch at a Time quilt club. It’s great to see our veterans honored, of course. And it’s incredible some of the stories they share in the church setting without being sworn to tell the whole truth and nothing but it.

But more than that this year was the number of men I’ve known for years but really knew nothing of their military service.

Jim Grimes has sold me wallpaper, carpeting and even an odd antique or two over the years. But I never knew of his Navy career that includes being deployed on a submarine during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

John Wood has made my feet tap and my fingers snap on more than one or two occasions. But I never knew he got drafted into the Army Air Corps (predecessor to the Air Force) in 1945 and was sent to Pearl Harbor to learn radar repair techniques.

Jerry Ensor’s an electrical whiz, I understand, but I’ve actually known him more over the years as the esteemed Putnam County Republican chairman, bringing us would-be officeholders to interview or state bigwigs like Mitch Daniels, Mike Pence, Bob Orr and more to talk to face to face. Turns out he was an electrical counter measures operator, no doubt learning the tricks of his trade while in the Navy 1958-61.

All those days as a floor man at Headley’s, Jon Blue has saved my neck several times, offering tips on how to fix a running toilet, how to stop a faucet from dripping and how to put the hot back into the water heater. Turns out he joined the Navy in 1969 and had four years active service, including time as a riverboat platoon sergeant in Vietnam.

And Jerry Lewis, all those times he’s joined our group’s Friday night get-togethers in the Putnam Inn or poured new concrete for my driveway, I never knew he was a Marine. Semper fi, man.

That’s only half the story.

Lewis joined the Marines in 1963, serving as an auto mechanic in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and four -- four, count them, four -- tours of duty in Vietnam before coming home to start a construction business first in Fillmore and then Greencastle.

Wood was part of the Greatest Generation as the now 94-year-old tackled radar repair techniques said to be the equivalent of four years of college while stationed at Pearl Harbor.

“He’s known throughout Putnam and adjoining counties for his musical talents,” Quilts of Honor emcee Tim Tillotson said, “but as part of the Greatest Generation, we owe him a debt of thanks.”

Tillotson also shared some top-secret info on Grimes. Turns out that while awaiting his Navy shore leave, Grimes liked to tape packs of American cigarettes to his ankles that he could later trade for food or a hotel room.

The Cuban Missile Crisis connection is his coup de grace. Grimes, Tillotson shared, was aboard a sub that escorted a Russian ship back to the Black Sea as the rest of the world waited on needles and pins.

So let me get this straight. While Grimes, Lewis, Blue, Ensor and Wood were out there saving the world, I was basically huddled under my fourth-grade desk.

Guess I only have one word to say: Thanks.