Christmas Day, 2023 - Merry Christmas to all!
God bless us every one!
Last night in church our pastor used Dickens' Christmas Carol as part of her sermon. So I am reminded to quote Tiny Tim.
Quiet holiday. My cousin Micky (my house-mate) went to Maryland to be with part of her family. She and I went out to lunch at the Hotel Hershey on the 23rd (my birthday) with my sister. Enjoyed catching up and came home with 2 meals' worth of high-class "doggie bag" leftovers.
Holiday lights around town are cheerful. I only put my window candles up in the last few days - not even all of them yet. I do have all of my nativity scenes placed where they usually go. There are about 6 of them, not counting the little ones that are tree ornaments. No Christmas tree this year, but I have several small light-up clear plastic or glass trees among my decorations. I love the ease of the LED tealights, larger candles and string lights - even with a remote sometimes!
I have spent most of this year still organizing the 600+ photos from my Nov 2022 trip to Israel. (Sorry folks, no grave photos.) A lot of people I know are getting photo albums or framed photos from me this year. Very thankful I went then and not this year! It really was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, especially given how the political situation has deteriorated since. I try to keep all of the people I met in Israel in my prayers.
If you are looking for a way to help, please consider contributing to Doctors Without Borders. They are working in Gaza and in Ukraine. They have no political agenda. Often they are the first humanitarian aid group to show up when there is trouble.
I have much to be thankful for, but sometimes I lack the energy to even give thanks. Between arthritis, sleep apnea, gastrointestinal sequelae to colon cancer and feeling overwhelmed by everyday activities like paying bills, I often find myself wanting to go & hibernate with a book. Even a book I have read before. ESPECIALLY a book where I know there will be no distressing surprises. Inspirational Christmas books are good for that. The Bible, too.
Do I dare to make a New Year's resolution to update this profile more often in 2024? I have 6 more days to decide. No hurry.
Wishing all my FAG friends & acquaintances a happy, healthy & safe New Year 2024!
********************************************************
Feb 21, 2023 - Happy Fasnacht Day!!!
Here in very Germanic Central PA the Fasnacht doughnuts are for sale all over today. Enjoy them if you see them where you are!!
Meanwhile I am still captioning and organizing the 600+ photos I took while in Israel last November.
I came down with COVID, in spite of being vaccinated, as soon as I arrived home from Israel. Thank God it was not serious. I have had colds that were worse. Still, it has taken me a while to regain my energy.
I had great plans to keep a journal when in Israel, but that didn't happen. The tour woke us up daily about 6:30 am and we were usually eating dinner around 8:30 pm. By the time I reached my hotel room, I was barely able to do devotions and lay out my clothes for the next day. More than once I fell asleep only to wake in the night because my Bible was poking me in the back in the bed.
Since I didn't do a journal, my photos with their automatic GPS are my main souvenir of this trip. The GPS helps tremendously when I look at a photo and try to recall -which church is this?
Google Photos lets me open Google Maps from inside the photo display. This allows me to move my cursor around the area near my red pin to see which labels appear. The only problem is sometimes they appear in Hebrew!
I have only about 40 more images to caption.
Then I will work on deciding which shots to put in albums or get enlargements. I remember what it was like back in the 1980s to shoot and organize our photos of several 10-day trips to England. The new technology has made this work so much easier for an occasional traveler like me. Didn't take any meaningful grave photos in Israel, but the practice with the new phone should make me a better photo volunteer.

Nov 29 - Steep learning curve with new smartphone (my 1st smartphone). I must have spent over an hour yesterday trying to find a way to get the device to tell me the number of photos I have on it. No luck. Finally gave up and counted by hand, displaying each page of images - over 700, so not a trivial task. After a similar struggle I did find a way to show how many Contacts I have. Note the Contacts count is something I could do in 5 seconds on my old flip phone. Next step is to caption photos and add locations from the link to Google Maps. This is my 1st time using a phone that adds GPS, so this does have relevance to my work on FAG. So far I am finding the GPS place name database for Israel is full of misspellings. Probably due to transliteration issues. Not sure how to submit corrections, but that isn't my priority now.

Nov 15, 2022 Wonderful trip! Only one problem - I returned to the USA with COVID-19. Feels like a bad cold right now. I had a tele-heath doctor visit this afternoon and she wrote me a prescription for an anti-viral. Please keep me in your prayers. Self-quarantining should give me time to put captions on my smartphone photos anyway.
Oct 28, 2022 - I am going to Israel with a group tour November 1 through 11. Only 3 more days!!! Found out about the trip when I went to my 50th college reunion (Wilson College, class of 1972) back in June. Sponsored by my alumni association and I know the couple who are leading the trip, too. I don't know if I will take any grave photos while I am there, but I have bought a new phone, my 1st smartphone, so I am prepared if the opportunity arises. I plan to pray for people I know who are ill and also for family members who have died at some of the holy places we will visit. My biggest challenge is being mindful of every minute I am there, not letting myself drift into daydreams or worries that can wait until I get home. Not letting taking photos stop me from direct experience of the places I photograph. I had all my 1-year follow-up appointments for my colon cancer treatment in the last few weeks. Everything is fine, thank the Lord. So this trip is a celebration and a thanksgiving as well.
May 9, 2022 - Finally getting warm enough here to make walking in graveyards an attractive idea. I hope to visit some of the ones in town again soon.
Meanwhile I am getting to know my new primary doctor. So far we are getting along well. I finally had postponed surgery on my left hand last week - carpal tunnel repair and trigger finger repair on ring finger. Feels much better, even with some soreness and itching where it is healing. My fingers don't tingle and go numb from carpal tunnel like they used to do almost every morning. What a blessing.
March 29, 2022 - So far so good. I've been able to do some general tidying up on FAG. Hoping to get back to working on the Marietta Cemetery photos soon, especially if the weather warms up.
I'm changing primary care doctors - 1st appointment tomorrow. Wish me luck. In the days before COVID I might have been able to have an informal "get-to-know-you" visit. But all of our medical personnel are too busy now for that.
I just found the Internist with the first open slot for new patients, and I will take my chances. One of the specialists I see knows her, and speaks well of her. I'm praying it will work out.
I feel one of the reasons my colon cancer was not found sooner was because my previous PCP didn't keep up with things like blood tests.
Jan 18, 2022 - New year and I hope a healthier one. I am mostly recovered from the cancer surgery. It was Stage 1, so I did not need radiation or chemo therapy. Will need ongoing surveillance in case of recurrence, but the odds are in my favor. Between COVID and a minor auto accident in Nov, the holidays were quiet here. Had to cut back on walking as I recover from surgery, which has made it harder for me to maintain weight loss. Don't even want to think about what doing 2022 income tax will be like with all my medical expenses. I am appreciating the FAG upgrades to the Plot field. Enjoying the discussions on the Forums from time to time. Thank you, fellow gravers who sent me good wishes. May we all have a safe and healthy 2022.
Sept 2021 - June 21, 2021 I had major colon cancer surgery, with a 2nd successful surgery August 30. Now I only need to heal the incision before I can be back to walking most days. I still won't be out at cemeteries very much, as I am afraid of falling.
However, I often find working on FAG data helps take my mind off distressing thoughts. Puts things in perspective. So I will be doing my usual amount of researching and editing. Just be aware that I may not sign on every day.
********************
My grave location research is mostly centered on my Kirby & Hipple relatives, although I do some famous graves, too. My paternal grandmother, Alice Richman Kirby Bunting, who lived to be 93 (FAG #110212030). used to take us to check on her pre-need grave stone when we were kids.
I'm not a genealogist, but I like to visit the graves of people I care about. Most of my activity involves SE PA, central PA & southern NJ.
***************************************************
CEMETERY DOCUMENTATION I HAVE -
1) Electronic copy of the spreadsheet for the Woodstown Friends Burial Ground (Salem Co, NJ) through 2015. The Meeting recently transcribed the handwritten ledgers going back to about 1800.
2) DVD of The Cemeteries of Marietta (Lancaster Co, PA) by James Landis, copyright 2012, which covers gravestones visible as of 2010. The DVD includes photos of all marked graves. If you need a photo for Marietta Cemetery or any other cemetery in Marietta Borough before 2011, I can get it from the DVD.
****************************
***** NOTES and BLOG *****
DECEMBER 2020 - Adding photos and grave locations to Marietta Cemetery a few at a time. Getting to a point where I will have to add new memorials to add more photos. Continuing to find duplicates when I am looking for other things. Seems as if the duplicate fix process is getting slower lately.
NOVEMBER 2020 - Continuing to place flowers on memorials for babies who died. Then I put in edits when I find incorrect or missing birth dates. Also adding some photos and memorials to Marietta Cemetery. Still about 500 memorials there w/o photos.
OCTOBER 2020 - Found my first case of 3 memorials for the same person. She was married twice and had a memorial under each married name, plus one under her maiden name. Put the 1st 2 in to be merged. The system wouldn't let me put in the 3rd memorial to be merged with the one that should remain from the 1st merge. I guess I wait for that to be completed. The Blatt family memorials are all straightened out now. Had to wait for auto edits.
SEPTEMBER 2020 - Some time ago I tried to get Genevieve Blatt designated as famous. No luck. FAG needs more memorials for women who were famous for something other than being an entertainer. Judge Blatt is well known in both Democratic Party and Roman Catholic circles. Recently I decided to work on tidying up her memorial in other ways. One of her sisters was listed as a half-sister. Her brother Joseph was not linked to the family at all. I took over management of the memorial for Judge Blatt's brother George from FAG. He was killed in WW II. Body never found. I sent that in to be marked as a Cenotaph. FAG did it in a little over 24 hours. Great!
AUGUST 2020 - I was posting flowers for recently died babies when I found several people in their 80s whose death dates were entered as their birth dates. Made it look like they were only a few months old at death. In one case, it resulted in a duplicate memorial. Sent in the edits to the memorial managers. Seems to be just sloppy data entry. Not done by new members either. To post the obituary showing DOD in the bio and then enter death dates that don't match suggests a lack of attention.
JUNE 2020 - Duplicate removal process still seems to be working well. I sent in 2 pairs about 4 days ago and they were both merged as suggested when I checked today. I wasn't on FAG yesterday, so they may have been done sooner. I was wondering if these would go through since both of them involved memorials in 2 different cemeteries. In one case the duplication probably arose when someone mis-transcribed the cemetery name in a posted obituary. Paxtang was given as Paxton. Both are Harrisburg place names with cemeteries. This is where local knowledge can be critical. FAG accepted my analysis and explanation.
MAY 2020 - Picked up management of another 4 or 5 memorials from FAG so far this month. Some are interesting relatives. Also went through my Virtual Cemetery of memorials needing better bios and found quite a few now have them. Thank you unknown FAG volunteers with more time than I seem to have!
FEB 2020 - I requested and rec'd management of about a dozen memorials previously managed by FAG a few days ago. Some distant relatives, some friends and some just people I care about. For example, the school van driver who always took good care of my special needs son. A woman I went to high school with - we walked to the school bus together in the mornings. She was a labor and delivery nurse at a local hospital for many years. I was happy to be able to take charge of these memorials. I went through the Virtual Cemeteries I had created for Friends to find memorials now managed by FAG. Something other contributors might want to consider now that this option to acquire management is available.
OCT 2019 - FAG fixed the famous duplicate. Just took a few days longer.
SEP 2019 - Tried the new duplicate reporting feature for the 1st time. I sent in 10 pairs, including one where the original memorial was designated famous. All of them came back yesterday merged as I requested, except the famous one. That duplicate is still there. Maybe they need to do more research for a famous. But I am very pleased with the results so far. Some of these have been hanging out there for years. Our local DAR added a raft of Revolutionary War graves about 10 years ago without checking for duplicates. I thought a couple of these were a bit unclear, but FAG put them all thru' as I requested. WOO HOO! I will have to look up some other dups I haven't bothered with.
JUNE 2019 - I have not been very active since Sept 2018 due to a variety of medical problems. I am still dealing with those, but beginning to make some headway and get back to working on FAG. I need to use the new Duplicate reporting feature to fix some longtime issues.
NOV 2017 - Still systematically adding information and, when needed, memorials from the Woodstown (NJ) Friends Burial Ground database. I have completed a first pass adding all the records from the database to FAG. I will continue to work with contacts from the Meeting to resolve discrepancies and clean up the data. I want to create an annotated map showing which graves need to be photographed.
OCT 2017 - My GG GF John Hipple's VA grave stone has been placed!!! On October 5th 2017 I visited his grave and took photos. He is memorial FAG# 161455430. The bio recounts his interesting military career. Check it out!

Christmas Day, 2023 - Merry Christmas to all!
God bless us every one!
Last night in church our pastor used Dickens' Christmas Carol as part of her sermon. So I am reminded to quote Tiny Tim.
Quiet holiday. My cousin Micky (my house-mate) went to Maryland to be with part of her family. She and I went out to lunch at the Hotel Hershey on the 23rd (my birthday) with my sister. Enjoyed catching up and came home with 2 meals' worth of high-class "doggie bag" leftovers.
Holiday lights around town are cheerful. I only put my window candles up in the last few days - not even all of them yet. I do have all of my nativity scenes placed where they usually go. There are about 6 of them, not counting the little ones that are tree ornaments. No Christmas tree this year, but I have several small light-up clear plastic or glass trees among my decorations. I love the ease of the LED tealights, larger candles and string lights - even with a remote sometimes!
I have spent most of this year still organizing the 600+ photos from my Nov 2022 trip to Israel. (Sorry folks, no grave photos.) A lot of people I know are getting photo albums or framed photos from me this year. Very thankful I went then and not this year! It really was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, especially given how the political situation has deteriorated since. I try to keep all of the people I met in Israel in my prayers.
If you are looking for a way to help, please consider contributing to Doctors Without Borders. They are working in Gaza and in Ukraine. They have no political agenda. Often they are the first humanitarian aid group to show up when there is trouble.
I have much to be thankful for, but sometimes I lack the energy to even give thanks. Between arthritis, sleep apnea, gastrointestinal sequelae to colon cancer and feeling overwhelmed by everyday activities like paying bills, I often find myself wanting to go & hibernate with a book. Even a book I have read before. ESPECIALLY a book where I know there will be no distressing surprises. Inspirational Christmas books are good for that. The Bible, too.
Do I dare to make a New Year's resolution to update this profile more often in 2024? I have 6 more days to decide. No hurry.
Wishing all my FAG friends & acquaintances a happy, healthy & safe New Year 2024!
********************************************************
Feb 21, 2023 - Happy Fasnacht Day!!!
Here in very Germanic Central PA the Fasnacht doughnuts are for sale all over today. Enjoy them if you see them where you are!!
Meanwhile I am still captioning and organizing the 600+ photos I took while in Israel last November.
I came down with COVID, in spite of being vaccinated, as soon as I arrived home from Israel. Thank God it was not serious. I have had colds that were worse. Still, it has taken me a while to regain my energy.
I had great plans to keep a journal when in Israel, but that didn't happen. The tour woke us up daily about 6:30 am and we were usually eating dinner around 8:30 pm. By the time I reached my hotel room, I was barely able to do devotions and lay out my clothes for the next day. More than once I fell asleep only to wake in the night because my Bible was poking me in the back in the bed.
Since I didn't do a journal, my photos with their automatic GPS are my main souvenir of this trip. The GPS helps tremendously when I look at a photo and try to recall -which church is this?
Google Photos lets me open Google Maps from inside the photo display. This allows me to move my cursor around the area near my red pin to see which labels appear. The only problem is sometimes they appear in Hebrew!
I have only about 40 more images to caption.
Then I will work on deciding which shots to put in albums or get enlargements. I remember what it was like back in the 1980s to shoot and organize our photos of several 10-day trips to England. The new technology has made this work so much easier for an occasional traveler like me. Didn't take any meaningful grave photos in Israel, but the practice with the new phone should make me a better photo volunteer.

Nov 29 - Steep learning curve with new smartphone (my 1st smartphone). I must have spent over an hour yesterday trying to find a way to get the device to tell me the number of photos I have on it. No luck. Finally gave up and counted by hand, displaying each page of images - over 700, so not a trivial task. After a similar struggle I did find a way to show how many Contacts I have. Note the Contacts count is something I could do in 5 seconds on my old flip phone. Next step is to caption photos and add locations from the link to Google Maps. This is my 1st time using a phone that adds GPS, so this does have relevance to my work on FAG. So far I am finding the GPS place name database for Israel is full of misspellings. Probably due to transliteration issues. Not sure how to submit corrections, but that isn't my priority now.

Nov 15, 2022 Wonderful trip! Only one problem - I returned to the USA with COVID-19. Feels like a bad cold right now. I had a tele-heath doctor visit this afternoon and she wrote me a prescription for an anti-viral. Please keep me in your prayers. Self-quarantining should give me time to put captions on my smartphone photos anyway.
Oct 28, 2022 - I am going to Israel with a group tour November 1 through 11. Only 3 more days!!! Found out about the trip when I went to my 50th college reunion (Wilson College, class of 1972) back in June. Sponsored by my alumni association and I know the couple who are leading the trip, too. I don't know if I will take any grave photos while I am there, but I have bought a new phone, my 1st smartphone, so I am prepared if the opportunity arises. I plan to pray for people I know who are ill and also for family members who have died at some of the holy places we will visit. My biggest challenge is being mindful of every minute I am there, not letting myself drift into daydreams or worries that can wait until I get home. Not letting taking photos stop me from direct experience of the places I photograph. I had all my 1-year follow-up appointments for my colon cancer treatment in the last few weeks. Everything is fine, thank the Lord. So this trip is a celebration and a thanksgiving as well.
May 9, 2022 - Finally getting warm enough here to make walking in graveyards an attractive idea. I hope to visit some of the ones in town again soon.
Meanwhile I am getting to know my new primary doctor. So far we are getting along well. I finally had postponed surgery on my left hand last week - carpal tunnel repair and trigger finger repair on ring finger. Feels much better, even with some soreness and itching where it is healing. My fingers don't tingle and go numb from carpal tunnel like they used to do almost every morning. What a blessing.
March 29, 2022 - So far so good. I've been able to do some general tidying up on FAG. Hoping to get back to working on the Marietta Cemetery photos soon, especially if the weather warms up.
I'm changing primary care doctors - 1st appointment tomorrow. Wish me luck. In the days before COVID I might have been able to have an informal "get-to-know-you" visit. But all of our medical personnel are too busy now for that.
I just found the Internist with the first open slot for new patients, and I will take my chances. One of the specialists I see knows her, and speaks well of her. I'm praying it will work out.
I feel one of the reasons my colon cancer was not found sooner was because my previous PCP didn't keep up with things like blood tests.
Jan 18, 2022 - New year and I hope a healthier one. I am mostly recovered from the cancer surgery. It was Stage 1, so I did not need radiation or chemo therapy. Will need ongoing surveillance in case of recurrence, but the odds are in my favor. Between COVID and a minor auto accident in Nov, the holidays were quiet here. Had to cut back on walking as I recover from surgery, which has made it harder for me to maintain weight loss. Don't even want to think about what doing 2022 income tax will be like with all my medical expenses. I am appreciating the FAG upgrades to the Plot field. Enjoying the discussions on the Forums from time to time. Thank you, fellow gravers who sent me good wishes. May we all have a safe and healthy 2022.
Sept 2021 - June 21, 2021 I had major colon cancer surgery, with a 2nd successful surgery August 30. Now I only need to heal the incision before I can be back to walking most days. I still won't be out at cemeteries very much, as I am afraid of falling.
However, I often find working on FAG data helps take my mind off distressing thoughts. Puts things in perspective. So I will be doing my usual amount of researching and editing. Just be aware that I may not sign on every day.
********************
My grave location research is mostly centered on my Kirby & Hipple relatives, although I do some famous graves, too. My paternal grandmother, Alice Richman Kirby Bunting, who lived to be 93 (FAG #110212030). used to take us to check on her pre-need grave stone when we were kids.
I'm not a genealogist, but I like to visit the graves of people I care about. Most of my activity involves SE PA, central PA & southern NJ.
***************************************************
CEMETERY DOCUMENTATION I HAVE -
1) Electronic copy of the spreadsheet for the Woodstown Friends Burial Ground (Salem Co, NJ) through 2015. The Meeting recently transcribed the handwritten ledgers going back to about 1800.
2) DVD of The Cemeteries of Marietta (Lancaster Co, PA) by James Landis, copyright 2012, which covers gravestones visible as of 2010. The DVD includes photos of all marked graves. If you need a photo for Marietta Cemetery or any other cemetery in Marietta Borough before 2011, I can get it from the DVD.
****************************
***** NOTES and BLOG *****
DECEMBER 2020 - Adding photos and grave locations to Marietta Cemetery a few at a time. Getting to a point where I will have to add new memorials to add more photos. Continuing to find duplicates when I am looking for other things. Seems as if the duplicate fix process is getting slower lately.
NOVEMBER 2020 - Continuing to place flowers on memorials for babies who died. Then I put in edits when I find incorrect or missing birth dates. Also adding some photos and memorials to Marietta Cemetery. Still about 500 memorials there w/o photos.
OCTOBER 2020 - Found my first case of 3 memorials for the same person. She was married twice and had a memorial under each married name, plus one under her maiden name. Put the 1st 2 in to be merged. The system wouldn't let me put in the 3rd memorial to be merged with the one that should remain from the 1st merge. I guess I wait for that to be completed. The Blatt family memorials are all straightened out now. Had to wait for auto edits.
SEPTEMBER 2020 - Some time ago I tried to get Genevieve Blatt designated as famous. No luck. FAG needs more memorials for women who were famous for something other than being an entertainer. Judge Blatt is well known in both Democratic Party and Roman Catholic circles. Recently I decided to work on tidying up her memorial in other ways. One of her sisters was listed as a half-sister. Her brother Joseph was not linked to the family at all. I took over management of the memorial for Judge Blatt's brother George from FAG. He was killed in WW II. Body never found. I sent that in to be marked as a Cenotaph. FAG did it in a little over 24 hours. Great!
AUGUST 2020 - I was posting flowers for recently died babies when I found several people in their 80s whose death dates were entered as their birth dates. Made it look like they were only a few months old at death. In one case, it resulted in a duplicate memorial. Sent in the edits to the memorial managers. Seems to be just sloppy data entry. Not done by new members either. To post the obituary showing DOD in the bio and then enter death dates that don't match suggests a lack of attention.
JUNE 2020 - Duplicate removal process still seems to be working well. I sent in 2 pairs about 4 days ago and they were both merged as suggested when I checked today. I wasn't on FAG yesterday, so they may have been done sooner. I was wondering if these would go through since both of them involved memorials in 2 different cemeteries. In one case the duplication probably arose when someone mis-transcribed the cemetery name in a posted obituary. Paxtang was given as Paxton. Both are Harrisburg place names with cemeteries. This is where local knowledge can be critical. FAG accepted my analysis and explanation.
MAY 2020 - Picked up management of another 4 or 5 memorials from FAG so far this month. Some are interesting relatives. Also went through my Virtual Cemetery of memorials needing better bios and found quite a few now have them. Thank you unknown FAG volunteers with more time than I seem to have!
FEB 2020 - I requested and rec'd management of about a dozen memorials previously managed by FAG a few days ago. Some distant relatives, some friends and some just people I care about. For example, the school van driver who always took good care of my special needs son. A woman I went to high school with - we walked to the school bus together in the mornings. She was a labor and delivery nurse at a local hospital for many years. I was happy to be able to take charge of these memorials. I went through the Virtual Cemeteries I had created for Friends to find memorials now managed by FAG. Something other contributors might want to consider now that this option to acquire management is available.
OCT 2019 - FAG fixed the famous duplicate. Just took a few days longer.
SEP 2019 - Tried the new duplicate reporting feature for the 1st time. I sent in 10 pairs, including one where the original memorial was designated famous. All of them came back yesterday merged as I requested, except the famous one. That duplicate is still there. Maybe they need to do more research for a famous. But I am very pleased with the results so far. Some of these have been hanging out there for years. Our local DAR added a raft of Revolutionary War graves about 10 years ago without checking for duplicates. I thought a couple of these were a bit unclear, but FAG put them all thru' as I requested. WOO HOO! I will have to look up some other dups I haven't bothered with.
JUNE 2019 - I have not been very active since Sept 2018 due to a variety of medical problems. I am still dealing with those, but beginning to make some headway and get back to working on FAG. I need to use the new Duplicate reporting feature to fix some longtime issues.
NOV 2017 - Still systematically adding information and, when needed, memorials from the Woodstown (NJ) Friends Burial Ground database. I have completed a first pass adding all the records from the database to FAG. I will continue to work with contacts from the Meeting to resolve discrepancies and clean up the data. I want to create an annotated map showing which graves need to be photographed.
OCT 2017 - My GG GF John Hipple's VA grave stone has been placed!!! On October 5th 2017 I visited his grave and took photos. He is memorial FAG# 161455430. The bio recounts his interesting military career. Check it out!