Rally Point 75

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rally pointers fun in. Hi, everybody, it's your host, Amanda
mccanue here with Paul Pleshi in the studio with me
today as my co host.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
How's it going, Paul great, good morning, I'm glad to
be here.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Fantastic. Well, y'all, it's a fantastic Friday. Let's jump right
into the show. So today with us in studio, we
have Mitch Messenberg. He is the president of Operation Solid Seven,
which is a nonprofit that seeks to serve veterans and
first responders in any kind of mental health needs, financial needs,

(00:36):
things like that to help keep them resilient even during
and beyond their service. They also serve active duty and
Gold Star families as part of their mission as well.
Welcome to the show, Mitch.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Absolutely, we've had you on the show a few times before,
but it's it's been a little while. So for our listeners,
tell us a bit about your story. How you you
know your life experiences that led to you founding Operation
Solid seven.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Well, for me, the story starts about two weeks before
my eighth birthday, and that was in May nineteen sixty nine.
I was with my buddies and you know, We're all
down at the edge of Lake Erie by an aqueduct.
We're watching the big, huge carp come upstream and the

(01:32):
big puffy clouds in the sky, and the lake was
like a sheet of glass. You couldn't you couldn't tell
where the lake was and where the heavens began. It
was just one of those days you thought nothing could
possibly go wrong. Soon after that, I see my brother
Randy come running towards me, and he had a look

(01:53):
on his face that I've never seen before, and he said,
we need to get home. Terry's been shot. Area was
my brother served in the ninth Infantry Vietnam, and uh
he What happened was they were under sniper fire and
one of the guys got shot. He was out in

(02:15):
the open, and my brother ran out, grabbed him and
pulled him to safety, but in the process he got
shot as well. So getting back to the seven year old,
we ran back to the house and of course the
house was full of family and friends and neighbors and

(02:35):
everyone speaking in hush tones. And I was the youngest
in the family, so everybody was really afraid to say
anything to me, which was it's not a good idea
to do that.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
I was going to say that was probably even more unsettling.
You could feel something was wrong, and what it was.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Now my imagination has taken over, and it was not good.
My my mom came up that night to bed and she,
you know, tucked me in and said, you know, Terry's
been shot, but he's alive and he's in a hospital
and I think he's going to be fine. And I
was like, okay, you know, so that's good. So then,

(03:12):
you know, that week, you know, my parents kind of
moved around like ghosts. But my mom went into cleaning mode.
I mean it was as if making the house clean
was gonna take care of everything.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
So the following Sunday after this half, this was on
a Sunday, what would have been this Sunday before Memorial Day,
but I don't think Memorial Day started until seventy one officially.
But they my sister took us to church and we're
in church, and you know, when you're seven years old

(03:48):
in church, you're looking around, you know, stand, sit, neil, repeat,
not really paying attention, looking for familiar faces. And then
all of a sudden, my sister stood up and said,
let's go. And my brother grabbing by the hand, pulled
me to my feet, and I thought, oh my gosh,
we're gonna get in so much trouble for leaving early.
Got out in the parking lot and my brother looked
at me. He said, he said, didn't you just hear

(04:09):
the priest? And I said, no, what, Terry's dead. And
so I think what happened was my parents called and said, hey,
can someone tell our kids to just come home? Oh God,
And instead they just told the whole congregation, which was another.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Don't do that kind of moment. Yeah, Oh my goodness.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
So we got home. By the time we got home,
it was my mom, my dad, and my grandmother sitting
in the living room and uh, just staring at the floor.
And that's my two brothers and my sister and I.
We we just sat in there and we joined them.
That's all you did was stare at the floor. And
you know it started out, you know, the week before

(04:49):
the weather was so beautiful, and all of a sudden,
the sky's turned gray, and you know, the wind started
picking up. And we lived right on Lake Erie, so
the you know, the waves started coming on the shore
and it was alls you heard was the crash and
the thunderous crash of the waves and and I mean
it was enough to shake the house. It was out
of tense. And then you heard the ticking of the

(05:10):
kitchen clock for hours and hours on end. After that,
you know, they had the funeral about I think it
took about a week before they could get his body back.
And when they had him at the funeral home, he
was in a casket with a glass cover on it.

(05:32):
And for years I used to have dreams that, you know,
there he was in that casket, and I just wanted to,
you know, hug him so bad. I couldn't so terry
a little bit about him. He he was my hero.
He only stood five foot two, but he was always
doing things. You know, he was the oldest. He's always

(05:53):
doing doing things around the brothers, and I I saw
on to challenge us, you know, whether that meant standing
on your head for the longest period of time, or
you know, who could eat the most limburger cheese, or
who could take a bite out of an onion like
an apple, and you know, just silly things like that.
But the one thing that I remember the most with
him is, you know, sitting there watching Superman and then afterwards,

(06:18):
he grabbed a towel and he tied her around my
neck like a cape, and then he'd go in the backyard.
He hoist me up on one hand and just run
me around the yard like I was flying. And he
would every time we watched Superman. Afterwards, we'd go out
in the backyard and do that and he'd he you know,
he wouldn't stop until I asked him to, and I
rarely asked him to stop. So it was just he

(06:40):
was just a great guy. You know, he played football.
They called him the mole because he just had this
ability to out maneuver much much bigger guys, and that's
how he was. He was just a go getter and
just just a hell of a nice guy. You know,
he was my hero. The funeral, you know, I remember

(07:05):
the burial was what I remember the most. I mean,
it was probably I don't know a thousand people there,
mostly classmates, and we're from a small town, so it's
it's a big crowd for that. All you heard was
you know, occasional crying and sobbing, and and I remember,

(07:26):
you know, the the sky didn't have there was no
color to the world there, and the birds weren't singing,
and you know, as there was was these you know,
the color guard, the soldiers, the guys that were handling
his casket were just so crisp and everything they did,

(07:47):
and I mean the folding of the flag just so
you know, pristine, and then handling that flag to my mom.
But I remember standing there and I remember that all
the breeze and I thought, gosh, why am I feeling
a breeze. I looked down and the front of my
shirt was soaked. I'm crying so much. Oh wow, And

(08:08):
I was embarrassed. I looked around to see if anybody
was paying attention saw me, and then the twenty one
gun salute brought me to my senses. Yeah, and then
the beginning they played taps, And I mean, to this day,
when I hear taps, even if it's on a movie
or something.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
I gotta Yeah, it's an emotional reminder for you.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, the connection is just solid. Yeah. The you know,
the Vietnam War war, as you Paul know, it was
horrible the way people were treated when they came back.
The soldiers were treated just horribly. And my dad was

(08:52):
a business businessman in town, and uh, you know, he
he was afraid of some of the rams vacations, so
we weren't allowed to talk about it. We weren't allowed
to display any type of patriotism. I begged my dad
to put a flag up, and he wouldn't do it,
and you know, based on he was afraid, you know, it.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Would it would draw the wrong kind of people that livelihood.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, after a few years he finally did. I kept
on him, and he put up a flagpole in the
backyard and it was my job to put the flag
up every day and take it down. I did it
with you know, pride, you know, I just I wanted

(09:43):
I wanted to remember mm hmm, you know me moral
day back then. I mean people say today that, you know,
all as it is a mattress sale, barbecue and all
that sort of stuff like we were talking about before.
But back then, that's all it was. Yeah, I mean,
it was it was a holiday that you know. I

(10:06):
think a lot of people didn't even know what it was.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
About, yeah, or they thought it was some way far
by gone era, like I've heard people say stuff like,
oh memorial they started out being about you know, past
wars from like the nineteenth century or whatever, remembering those people.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Nineteen seventy one is actually when they made it Memorial Day.
Before that, I believe it was Armisice Day. Does that
sound right. Yeah. So yeah, when they said they're going
to start Memorial Day, I was excited because I thought, Okay,
finally they're going to honor these guys. And keep in mind,
and by then, I'm only ten years old and I'm

(10:47):
still thinking in that process. Yeah, so this has been
with me for quite some time. It doesn't go away.
But getting back to the Memorial Day, it really frustrated
me back then that, you know, I really expected there
to be parades. I expected there to be something to

(11:10):
honor these guys, and there was nothing. Wow. Yeah. So
it wasn't until probably I would say the mid seventies,
late seventies is when finally people started coming out of
the woodwork a little bit and saying, hey, okay, we

(11:30):
got to honor these guys. Yeah, we got to do something.
And they started doing memorial services at the cemetery actually
where my brothers is in turn, and it was usually
you know, veterans that would come out and they'd talk
about their experience and oftentimes it went back to how

(11:51):
they were treated when they got back, and that's you know,
that was just horrifying. The uh. After that, I you know,
I got more and more involved with you know, I
remember having girlfriends and stuff like that, and when Memorial

(12:14):
Day would roll around and what are we going to
do today? I don't know what you're doing, but I'm
going to the cemetery. You know, That's that's what that's
what I do. And you know a lot of people
just didn't understand that. I think they do now more
than ever. I mean, I think the they've done a
good job of promoting Memorial Date to what it is

(12:36):
actually what it was. Yeah, absolutely, so you know that
that definitely does help me when we uh, when we
came down here, well actually we were up in Ohio
and and uh, I I did as much as I
could for veterans back then, but then I did get

(13:00):
aid and kids and and you know, the kids, I
always took them to Memorial Day to instill in them,
you know, what was all what it was all about.
And uh, but my my now ex wife, there's a
reason she's an ex.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
She they're always she didn't really.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
See it my way, so she didn't really care to
go to any of these ceremonies or anything. So it
was always just me and the kids. We were on
our own. But we we did do that, and I
think to this day they are still you know, pretty
much observing it.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, I was gonna say, Memorial Day mean something to them.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
I mean something exactly right. The my my oldest son,
he he really, uh really got involved. He joined Civil
Air Patrol. And when he did that, it was kind
of a double edged sword for me because I'm thinking, Okay,

(14:01):
I lost my brother, you know, to wartime, and what's
gonna happen with my son? And I can't imagine losing
my son. But he was pretty held down on going
and so he did. He did join the Air Force,
which I was happy and went to the Air Force
because I thought, okay, hear that, because I know those

(14:22):
guys get, you know, preferential treatment. Let's say, let's say.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
I'll say it's a good life. I'm not going to
complain about it.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
So he did go to that, and he, uh, he
enjoyed it very much. He he would always come visit
us for his leave and that you know, he came
to us one time. This is right before he's getting deployed,

(14:52):
and uh, I said, what's the game plan here? What
are you going to do? Are you going to try
to make a career out of this? You know, what's
the deal? And I he goes, well, he goes, I
want to do this deployment. I want to see what
this is like and then I'll make a decision on it. Cool,
okay boy. He did a deployment, uh to cutter our guitar,

(15:13):
whichever your lean is. And while he was there, he
sent us a picture of himself and texted to us
and he you know, he's standing from an armored vehicle,
armed to the teeth. And so I sent him a
text back and I said, son, you are one damn
handsome man, and he wrote back he goes, I'm a
solid seven. And that was a running joke for you know,

(15:37):
going back and forth for quite some time. But after
his deployment he came to visit us again and he
had some time off. So I said, what's the deal.
What are you going to do? He goes, He goes, yes,
I love this. He goes, I want to make a
career out of this, and he goes, I want to
I want to buy a duplex. I'm going to let
the tenant make my payments for me, and we got

(16:00):
a place to come every time I come down here.
And then uh he would uh he had he had
some private time after that was Shannon and uh he
was they were talking and and uh he said, you know,
the one thing I want more than anything else is
to have a relationship like you and Dad have. And

(16:22):
that was just just amazing. So he, uh he decided
he was going to make the career of it. He
went back to uh Alexander in Virginia. Uh he got
a place to stay up there.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Off base because he was stationed at Andrews Air Force
in Maryland.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
Yeah, he uh we all joined. You know. That was
right around uh November is when he went back, so
right around Thanksgiving. So we we reached out to him
after Thanksgiving and said, hey, look, Christmas is coming, why
don't you, you know, can you get away? He goes that,
you know, Dad, because there's a lot of guys here
that have you know, kids and family that he's a

(17:06):
I don't mind staying here. Let them have the Yeah,
so yeah, that's pretty cool. Soh same thing with New
Year's he goes, that's okay, he goes, those guys you know,
all right, all right, but you got family too, Just
remember that, you know. And it was January fifth. Shannon

(17:28):
and I were just taking down the Christmas decorations and
uh we uh it was about eight eight oh three pm.
We sat down, have a glass of wine on a
luni and and both of our phones got pinged on
a text message and we opened it up and here
it was a picture of a handwritten note. The note

(17:50):
spoke of It was from my son. It spoke of
his love for us and his love for his friends,
and it went on to say, this is nobody's fault.
The stress life has given me has taken away my
will to live. It was a suicide. Immediately Shannon tried

(18:11):
calling him. I called nine to one one and I
was able to get the police to his residence within
twelve minutes after that initial text. They kept me on
the phone the whole time, and I mean could hear
the sirens in the background and voices talking. And I
kept saying to the dispatcher, what's going on? Is he okay?

(18:34):
Is he all right? What's going on? And he said
somebody would be reaching out to you soon. I said, okay,
what do I do? He was just stay by the phone.
Somebody will be reaching out to you. So an hour
goes by, we didn't hear anything. I called him back.
He said, kept saying the same thing, stay by the phone.
This went on every hour that Saturday night until four

(18:54):
am the next morning. Finally, at four am, I called,
just begged. I was crying, please tell me what's going on. Yeah,
and reluctantly he told me. He said, your son is dead,
having a parent's self. It's like a gunshot wound. At
this point, it is a military matter and protocol dictates it.

(19:17):
The military will be taking over from here. I said, okay,
what's that mean. He said, well, somebody should be at
your door within the hour.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
Oh wow. They were already sending the detail out to
notify you.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
So at five am that morning, we got to knock
at the door and as Chaplin and an airman from
McDill they walked in. Chaplin said the words I can't
remember a thing, he said, But the alls I could
do is stare at the airman standing next to him,
who is shaking violently.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Oh yeah, because that's a detail that like when I
was in the med group, that's that's a detail that
people get a signed, and there's there's no real prep
that goes into that at all. It just is you're
on casualty detail. If you have to go out and
make a notification to a family, you need to have
They basically just tell you need to have your service
dress ready. They don't They don't really give you a

(20:17):
lot of preparation of what to expect, how to you know,
They just say, you know, be professional, keep your bearing.
They don't tell you what to expect, and I'll tell
you what to do. So I can absolutely believe that
that airman was just sitting there like, oh my goodness,
like they were changed forever from that visit.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
And I and I did run into him about a
month later up at McDill and he came up and
apologized and it's not it's okay, man, don't worry about it.
And he goes, he goes, that was the first time
I read to do that. Yeah, and he goes, I
just he goes, I didn't know what to do, yep,
And but real nice good. But we h after that,

(20:59):
it was, you know, after we found out, I went
in the living room and I sat down and Shannon
sat down next to me, and I caught myself. I'm
staring at the floor and it was just like it
was fifty years earlier. Wow, and the same thoughts, you know,

(21:23):
just running through your head. Just what do we do?
What do we do? What do we do?

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (21:30):
And I do believe that is when God spoke to me,
as far as gave me a mission. And I stood
up and went to the home office and Shannon goes,
where are you going? I said, I got to write
some things down. So I wrote wrote down a lot
of things that I'm telling you guys right now, and
I posted on Facebook just to kind of let people

(21:52):
know what's going on. And the post actually went viral.
It got shared over seventeen times, It got picked up
by Air Force times, it was made mandatory reading for
everybody at Andrews and uh uh. After that, it was

(22:15):
you know, people were calling me up ask me, you know,
for interviews and other things, and it just it turned
into something I didn't expect. But I mean, I'm glad
it did because it just got more word out and
that's what kind of puts Shannon an eye on this
path for Operation Solid seven. And that's the reason we
call it Solid seven is because you know, why he's

(22:37):
a solid seven. Yeah. So, and that's that's the thing
with you know, a lot of people when they when
they lose someone in their family to this type of situation,
they choose to do. What we do is to focus
that anger onto something else.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
The hurt.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
I mean you like, so my sister she lost a
son at thirteen years old and he took his own life.
And the one thing that she kept saying was there
has to be beauty from pain. There has I have
to be able to bring something good out of this
so that it's not in vain. It's not for no reason.

(23:24):
I was just gonna say, I feel like that's exactly
like you and Shannon. I hate that that assignment got
given to you, but you understood the assignment. You know,
you took it and said this is awful, but what
can we do to create blessing and positivity and goodness
out of this?

Speaker 3 (23:44):
And it was you know, yeah, I think to myself, Okay,
is this doing anything? Did it really do anything? Or
is this something that you know it's just not.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Worth Are you just shouting into the wind kind of thing?

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah? About I don't know. A week or so after
this happened with with our son. I was out in
the driveway washing my truck and and this guy pulled
up and a pick up. He jumped out and I
knew this guy he was. He was a Vietnam veteran
from the Brotherhood and I used to volunteer for the
Vietnam Brotherhood down here and do a lot of work

(24:20):
for them. So I knew this guy. And he come
running over to me, and I say, hey, what what
are you? Okay, what's going on? And he goes he
was crying, he said, He goes, hey, man, because I
had the gun in my hand. He goes, I was
just going through Facebook. I saw your post and I
read it as you saved my life.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
So I'm thinking, Okay, God got the message. You know,
this is what we need to do. So that's we
started pursuing, you know, the Operation Solid seven further and further.
You know, We've we've done a lot of things for
you know, with veterans village locally, helping them out with

(25:04):
the things that they need. We've had during the last
you know, out of hurricanes, we had a guy that
lost his house, lost the family cars, and his son
was graduating from the Marine Corps and he desperately wanted

(25:24):
to get down with the family to see him, so
we took care of making sure he got there see
his son.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
That's what it's all about, like bringing families together and helping,
you know, helping people have that that peace of mind
or you know, just helping them that probably worked wonders
for their mental health having gone through what they went through,
to have someone step in and make sure that they
could be there with their son at an important moment
in his life.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah. And you know, the thing is a lot of
people they say, geez, you know, they try to help,
but they say things like, you know, if you just
took down all all the stuff in your house about
your son and your brother, you.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Know, that's another thing to add to the don't do
that list, right, Yeah, do not do that. So we've
we've identified three different things that are like do not
do that.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah. And because you don't forget, I don't know how
hard you try, you will never forget. It's been fifty
over fifty years from my brother and I still get
at choked up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
If there's one thing I've learned about grieving, because I'm
I'll say like I'm honored to sit on your Board
of Advisors with Operation Solid seven. That is one of
the coolest things I've ever done in my life. And
I'm very proud to tell people that I sit on
your board. So thank you for having me for.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
That, But thank you.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
But the one thing that I've definitely learned is a
grieving journey is something that it's like a snowflake. No
two are the same, Like no person, no two people
grieve the same. There is there's no like manual per
se for grieving. I mean, you can, you can give guidance,
but you got to make sure that that's going to

(27:08):
be properly received because again, not everybody grieves the same.
What one person might find helpful someone else might not,
you know, And so definitely a grieving like I read
something one time that said something like, you know, you
never forget, you just you kind of try to learn
to live with it. Like one of my dear friends

(27:31):
who's like an aunt to me, her son also took
his own life, and she said something one time like,
my grief sits with me now. And I'm I get that,
and I've welcomed it and I've just allowed it to
be there because it will always be there if she
thinks about her son, if it's his birthday, if it's

(27:51):
the anniversary, if it's passing, Like, the grief is there,
and so she is just now decided to just let
it be there.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
And one of the best best things that happens is
when we get a call from somebody that served with
them and they tell us a story yep, or they
just say hey, they just mentioned his name, yes, and
that's that means the world to us.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Absolutely, Shannon says something I've heard her speak before, and
she made a statement during one of her speeches that
you know you don't die. Once you die twice, you know,
your body dies, but then when people stop saying your name,
that's you know, that's kind of that next death. And
so she says shin WHA's name every time she speaks publicly,

(28:37):
which is so impactful. And from what I understand, I
think it was his supervisor in the Air Force. He
and his wife were like just a tremendous source of
healing for the two of you after Shinha's death. Absolutely, yes,
Like I think Shannon told me, she's like, they tell
the funniest stories and you know, it just really gave

(28:58):
you guys, a one wonderful snapshot of what it was
like serving with him.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
Well, yeah, that's true, but you know, you know, getting
back to my brother's situation for him, what was one
of the things that really got me, you know, going
even more is when they put up the memorial wall
in d C. And every once in a while my

(29:25):
parents would get an etching in that mail. Wow, so
from one of his friends or you know, you know,
someone that knew him. They would write a little note saying, hey,
I just thought you might like this, and I'll tell
you what. Nothing was better. That just showed they didn't forget.
So the one one thing about my brother, we never

(29:48):
really heard anything about what happened in that battle. Back
in the nineties, I found somebody that I said, they said, hey,
there's a repository in Saint I wish you can get
all the information about They keep track.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Of everything the archives.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yes, yep.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
So I was like, awesome. So I reached out to him,
but they said, actually that wing burnt down. Everything was
on paper. Yeah, so we've got no records. Yeah, so
I kind of, you know, wash my hands of it.
It's like, okay, I'm never going to hear anything else
about this. Well, last December, we Shane and I were

(30:29):
invited to the play Elegy of a Green Berets Last
Man Out. That was Scott Man who did that play,
and the play actually got picked up by Gary Sinisee
and he paid to have it played all over the
United States. But he reached out to us, Scott and said, hey,

(30:51):
we're having the final play of the year. We'd like
a gold Star family to be there. Would you be there? Absolutely?
So he got there and before the play started, he
took us backstage and he introduced us to the cast.
He said, tell us your story. So I started telling
him basically a lot of the things I'm telling you
guys today, and and I you know, he said, so

(31:16):
you have no idea what really happened in that battle?
I said no. He goes, do you know what the
guy's name was that your brother saved? As as we
have is a surname Rodriguez. That's all we have. And
he goes, you know, okay. So the play started and
he's you know, he's the star of the play. He's
doing it. And afterwards ahead a Q and A and

(31:38):
maybe three hundred people in the audience, and you know,
a few people ask questions, a few people make comments,
and then afterwards Scott said, he goes, well, we do
have a gold star family. Here he goes, He goes,
Mitch Shannon, he said, you know, there were so many
times during the play tonight I lost my place because
I couldn't stop thinking about your brother. And he goes,

(32:01):
I have quite a network. Would you be okay if
I reach out to that network and see if we
can find anybody that served with him. Oh wow, all
these years, that's the first time anyone's offered to.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Help until, like, give you solid answers. That's huge exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
So he did that, and within three days we had someone.
Actually the guy that uh took care of the bodies,
he bagged them and uh he uh he said, uh
uh he wrote us. He didn't talk to us on
the phone.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
He just I can't understand that.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Yeah, And he said, yeah, the uh because I remember
that battle, and he goes, yeah. The the name of
that gentleman was Angel Rodriguez H Rivera and uh he
was from Puerto Rico and when and he did live.

(32:59):
When he got out, he went back to Puerto Rico.
He didn't speak it very much. Englier went back to
Puerto Rico. Unfortunately he did die in ninety three.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
On Veterans Day, ladies and gentlemen, mark your calendars for Saturday,
May twenty fourth at the Frans Ross YMCA. We're going
to have a whole day dedicated to veterans and resources
for them. Starting at eight am, Legacy Rock Club Southwest
Florida will be there hosting a ruck through Frans Ross Park.

(33:30):
All ages, all abilities are welcome. Purpose over pace, then
stick around for the Veteran Resource Fair at the Frans
Ross YMCA from eleven am to two pm. All veterans,
family members and community supporters are welcome. Don't miss the
opportunity to connect, celebrate, and support our veteran community. You
can expect to connect with local resources, support services, and

(33:52):
organizations dedicated to helping veterans and their families. Again, that's
the Veteran Resource Fair May twenty fourth, starting with an
eight am ruck followed by the Veteran Resource Fare from
eleven am to two pm inside the Franz Ross YMCA.
See you there.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Reason it's so hard to find some of our own
members is that we only knew last names. Our name
tags only had last names, So unless you were part
of a squad or a section, you didn't know anybody
else's first name. So many years later when we try
to find information out, because you don't know first names,

(34:31):
it makes it almost impossible. Our sergeants, probably near the
end of our tour duty, we just started to know
their first names. But our officers we never knew their
first name, so trying to find them or contact people,
it's impossible. Especially God forbid they had a name like Smith.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
I was just gonna say that. I was like, if
they were Captain Smith, that was the end of that.
It's like, good luck finding them.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Well, what happened. What we found out trying to find
people like you're trying to find, is that their serial number,
whether they were an RA or US, and then the
actual first couple of digits of their serial number told
us where they were drafted from or where their induction
center was. So when we went on the internet, we
knew we were looking for somebody from Patterson, New Jersey.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Got it.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
We knew that, and now we could even though we
made phone calls to Joe Smith, we eventually would find somebody.
I mean sometimes we found it through a grand We
found one individual through his grandson. We contacted him because
he had the same first name, and he said, well,
I'm only twenty two years old. My grandfather was in

(35:43):
Vietnam and that's how we found him interest and so
it was very difficult, and it still is very difficult
to find people in the military because the numbering system
was different. Then.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yeah, well this guy he was when he got back,
he that was his job, I mean he was he's
the bagger basically, and he said that he really had
a rough time, you know, dealing.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
With it, which sure you can't see that.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
So it was getting worse and worse for him, and
his wife said, look, why don't you go visit the
families and and talked to him because he had a
list of everybody and.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
It weighed heavily on him.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
He couldn't do it, oh mind, couldn't do it. So
he ended up visiting all the grave sites and got
it and putting up a marker and then taking pictures.
So he sent us, you know, pictures of Terry's grave
site with this marker, and we remember that marker going
up at his gravesite and thinking where did that come from?

(36:53):
It must be a BFW thing. Or something legion. You
look around, you don't see any other you know, headstones
with with that marker. It's like, okay, that's a little strange.
But he did also have a bunch of pictures. We
we only have, I mean very few pictures of Terry

(37:15):
when he was deployed. And so he goes, well, I'll
send you everything I got. He goes, see if you
can pick him out. Well, this is the pictures that
we had, is when he first got in and he's
still a fire plug of a guy, you know, stocky
build and everything. The pictures we saw after he was

(37:37):
skinny as a rail. Yeah, And I mean I saw
the lock in his face and he I got another
brother that's the same size and same statures as him.
And that's the reason I could tell it was him
is because it looked like yeah, And so that was

(38:00):
it was. It was really good. And and you know,
as people say, uh, you know, do you really want
to know more information? Yes, I don't want to know
as much as I possibly can. And this guy actually
spoke about that battle, and I said, uh, yeah, you know,
I wrote to him. I said, hey, you know what

(38:22):
about this this guy did? From what I understand there
was sniper fire, he goes, he goes, he goes, I
don't recall that if it was that battle, he goes.
But there was another battle where we got a new
guy in charge, and instead of putting us in uh,

(38:43):
separate places, he was, he was usually we were like
two guys here, three guys there, two guys here, he said,
They kept us all in one one group. Wow, And uh,
we came under fire and we didn't have a chance
because there's nobody that could you know, reach where these
guys are firing.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, nobody could maneuver because you were all together instead
of spread out.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Exactly that was, but he he couldn't be sure if
that was the same same battle, but it was. You know,
you get this information and you think, gosh, you know
all these years later and you know, and I'm sure

(39:24):
there's people out there that have probably less information than
what yeah, we had, But just keep the faith, you know,
just keep talking to people, tell people who they are,
and and there's a good possibility there's somebody out there
that knows your son, daughter, father, brother, whatever, and they

(39:47):
can give you a little more insight of what actually happened.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
A common phrase you hear from veterans is did I
dream that? And somebody else will tell them, no, that
actually happened, and and we'll fill in the gaps. There's
a lot of gaps. There was so many different units
in so many different places in Vietnam. The stories are similar,
but they're all different. It depends on where you were,

(40:13):
what you did. Even within the same unit, it depends
on what you did or where you were, what your
job was. That the same battle had different stories. So
it's not uncommon to hear that. And it was a
long time.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Ago, right, Yeah, sometimes things get a little fuzzy, you know,
the more time goes on, and then it gets harder
to I mean I only retired from the military four
years ago. In there some days where there are certain
details that five years ago, six years ago, I would
have been able to remember, no problem that Now it's
like very hazy. So I could totally see, especially the

(40:50):
sensitivity of the memory because it's traumatic, it's combat, you know.
I can see how maybe over time it might get
a little bit harder to remember.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
And we actually had one guy that was in his unit,
at least he said he was in his young I
don't know if he was not. We lived in you know,
locally to where we were in Ohio, and he came
to visit, and I remember the family. We were all
sitting out on the back deck looking out over Lake Erie.
And he goes, Okay, you guys got questions. What do

(41:22):
you want to know? And so I said, well, you know,
tell us about that that battle. He goes, well, I
just want to let you know he died instantly.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Hm hmm, because that wasn't the information given to your family.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Got a letter from him, woe in his handwriting.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
We knew it was him, So that's not accurate.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
No, that's not what And the guy got really mad
at me. Yeah, he goes, I was there. I saw it,
And okay, man, I'm just telling you what we were told.
Well you you got lied to. I said, okay, okay,
but you know, according to this other guy, you know,
what happened is, you know, closer to what we heard happen.

(42:09):
So I you know in battle, I've never done that. Yeah,
I mean, Paul, have you been.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Depending on There's a lot of things you see differently
from the same thing, so that's not uncommon to see things.
But people run together. You you have so many people
in a particular battle that and you're spread out, not
necessarily in one close area, So yeah, people see it

(42:43):
different ways, or you mistake one person for another.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Right, you know.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Well, And there's even stuff about the psychology of memory
and how sometimes in a in a disturbing situation where
you have witnessed something violent or you know, whatever the
case may be, Like it happens in courtroom all the time,
where two people can witness the exact same crime and
have completely different accounts of what happened or how it happened.
Like I would imagine with combat that could be a

(43:10):
possible thing where you know, two people who were in
the same battle and saw a lot of the same stuff,
their accounts would possibly differ, like you said, because of
perspective and then the passage of time.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
So well, and of course when you hear something like
that after you walk away and you start thinking conspiracy
theories and everything else.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Yeah, like that did we get lied to? Was that
letter written a week before he died? What happened?

Speaker 3 (43:37):
It spoke about his injuries?

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Oh well, there you go, Okay, but the uh.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
You know, there was a if you ever watched Mash, Yes,
there was this one Mash episode where this guy was.
He didn't have long left. He's getting shipped back to
the States and he got killed and a guy switched
uh dog tags with him. He knew he was going
to be getting out. So that came to mind. I'm thinking, yeah,

(44:05):
because my brother didn't have long to go. He was
he only had like another month in there and he
would have been out. So your mind goes to weird places,
and I guess you got to kind of entertain it
to a point.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
But well, it's the it's the quest for understanding, for closure,
for knowledge of what actually happened when you weren't there.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah, exactly right.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
But that was kind of the pathway to solid seven.
So so for people listening, I mean, you touched on
it briefly, but like, let's have that conversation about Memorial
Day and what that means and what that looks like.
So help us understand as a gold Star family, what
Memorial Day looks like for you. I mean you touched

(44:54):
on some of it, like with your brother, you know,
making sure that you honored Terry's memory every year at
the cemetery. You know, what are what are the things
about Memorial Day today? Now that you know you've lost Terry,
you've lost in wah. How what does Memorial Day look
like now? And like, what are the things about it
that are like, you know, from your perspective, do that

(45:16):
versus don't do that?

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Yeah, the I mean you still got people out there
that really don't have a clue.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Yeah, absolutely, and that.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
That's the toughest thing is. But the reason they diet
is for you to have the right to do what
you want to do, exactly, and you got to kind
of take everything with a grain of salt and look
the other way. But for us, you know, you know,
once again, it's it. We want you to have fun,

(45:48):
we want you to party, want you to enjoy the day.
But at the same time, please take a.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Moment absolutely, you know, just reflect on it, reflect on
those sacrifices.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
Well, what it's it's the ultimate sacrifice And it doesn't
seem like maybe that big of a deal until it
happens to your family.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Absolutely, And I think it's something that no one can
you genuinely cannot empathize with it until it touches your family.
I mean, my family's never been touched by loss through combat,
but I can imagine, you know, it probably kind of
morphs and goes through a lot of different types of
iterations from you know, the newness of your loss to

(46:30):
then being a couple more years out, you know, And
it's not that the grief leaves you, it's just that
how your perspective, like you said, Paul, the perspective kind
of changes over time. Like I I look at Memorial
Day after having served for twenty years and you know,
lost more friends than I care to admit. I look

(46:52):
at Memorial Day not as like some people call it
a holiday, and I get it, but for me, it's
more like and I don't want to be like happy
to glass or semantics, but it's an observance. Like for me,
it's a day to be observed. So the one thing
that doesn't sit well with me, and I'd be lying
if I said this. These words probably hadn't come out

(47:13):
of my mouth before, but people will say happy Memorial Day.
And it started really dawning on me right around the
time that I retired that I was like, I don't
think that's really an appropriate thing to say on a
Memorial Day. I think was actually it was while I
was still active duty. I started telling people like, you know,
if I was an email or whatever, have a blessed

(47:33):
Memorial Day, have a safe Memorial Day, you know, just
to kind of put that that emphasis on the fact
that it's a day of reverence. It's a day to reflect.
But I absolutely agree with you. It's a day to
honor those who gave that ultimate sacrifice by living the
life that they don't They don't get to live, you know,

(47:55):
like live your life well to honor them.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Yeah. I think you know a lot of you know,
when when someone is saying happy Memorial Day, they're not
meaning it the way we're taking it.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah, they're not meaning it to be a job. They're
trying to be pleasant or observant of the fact that
Memorial Day exists. I would agree with you.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
I like your idea of coming back with you have
you have a blessed Memorial Day? Yeah, absolutely, something like
that that it kind of hopefully makes them think for
a moment.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, it kind of brings it back, absolutely, because I mean, yeah,
the biggest thing I think about on Memorial Day is
like three pm Eastern Time is the national moment of Silence,
And you know, they encourage you to take a solid
minute that's sixty seconds. You know, if you're at a barbecue,
if you're you know, hanging out with your friends having

(48:45):
a beer or two. It just somebody said an alarm
for two fifty nine at that gathering. Because at three o'clock,
take the moment of silence. If you can't, you know,
if your event doesn't focus around three o'clock, but you
want to be reverent, make sure you have a moment
of silence during your gathering, just to take that time
to reflect and then, like I said, go about have fun,

(49:08):
have a great time, enjoy the company, be mindful, you know,
with who you're around, be present in the moment, because
that's what all our fallen service members would want. They
would want us to enjoy the freedom that they have
basically secured for us through the virtue of their service
and their ultimate sacrifice. So, I mean, some people get

(49:30):
mad about mattress sales, car sales, stuff like that. I
don't at all begrudge anybody a barbecue on Memorial Day
because what that is is that's bringing people together. That's
you know, gathering, and that's that's giving that moment to
take a moment's pause to reflect and say somebody's name,

(49:50):
you know, Shinwan Messenberg, say it, Terence Messenberg, say it.
You can you know those if you don't know anybody
who's a fallen service member, will now you know two
names of people who are that you know, speak their
name because that still keeps them, you know, it still
keeps a sense of their presence here on earth to

(50:12):
say their names. And so I would definitely say for listeners,
you know, maybe that's something you want to incorporate for
Memorial Day. Maybe it's not, but you know, for people
who kind of wonder what that perspective is, I think
that's a safe way to put it. I really correct
me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
I really like your idea of the set and the timer.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Absolutely. I do it at barbecues and it drives people nuts,
and I don't care. Like I said it for two
fifty nine, and I tell people, I'm like everybody, and
I have a pretty loud voice. This is my radio voice.
But I have a pretty loud voice, and I have
no qualm shouting at the top of my lungs at
an event. Everybody be quiet, we are having a moment
of silence.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
It's the remembrance of the day.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
Absolutely, absolutely it's and it's not I don't do it
to be me necessarily, but I do want to get
people's attention to be like, hey, this is important.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
It is the importance of the day.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Absolutely, So we just we appreciate you coming out and
thank you for telling your story. Again, I know you've
been on here before, but thank you for just giving
us that glimpse and helping us understand as a gold
star brother and father. Which if I know, if Shannon

(51:28):
was here right now, she couldn't be with us today.
She had another engagement. But I specifically remember her saying, like,
there was somebody that asked you, guys. They were like, oh,
I'm a I'm a blue star mother. How do I
become a gold star mother? That is not something you
want to aspire to? And the woman, like you said,
the woman did not know. She didn't know the meaning
of a gold star, so she was she was well intended,

(51:50):
she just didn't realize the implication of her question. So yeah,
I mean, we just we appreciate you being on the
show to share your insights and your inputs and to
tell the story. I mean, we have to keep telling
their stories. That's the best way to keep their legacies alive.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
So thank you.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
For having us absolutely Mitch Messenberg, President of Operation Solid seven, Yes,
thank you again. You are always welcome on the Rally
Points show awesome. If you love your veterans and support
your troops, what better way to show it than supporting
Southwest Florida Honor Flight. They have two events coming up
in the near future, so their first event will be
a car show at Seabring International Raceway on May thirty first,

(52:34):
from two to six pm. Come on out and have
a great time at the car show in c Bring.
More information available at SWFL Honorflight dot org or on
Facebook at Southwest Florida on or Flight. The next event
is Saturday, June fourteenth, a clay shoot tournament will be
happening at Burmont Shooting Club four eight five seven to

(52:55):
one Burmont Road in Puna Gorda, Florida. Eight am registration
one nine am start again. More details available at Swflonnorflight
dot org. Make sure you sign up for these events.
If you'd like to come out and support or participate,
we'd love to see you there. And that's all the
time we have for today's show. We want to thank

(53:16):
you all for joining us for this very special episode
and we hope that you would have an absolutely blessed
Memorial Day rally. Pointers fall out