Uncle Ray

At the end of October, my cute Uncle Ray, my dad's youngest brother, passed away.  He lived in Alabama for many many years and we didn't see him often or spend much time with him, but I thought he was pretty darn cool, anyway.  He would come to Idaho every couple of years and one time, we even went to Alabama and spent a couple of days with him. 

The last time I saw him was when we spent a week at Kaylene's in June of 2012.  We arranged to meet uncle Ray at the USS Alabama war memorial.  We only spent a couple of hours with him, but he told us some great stories and we had a lot of fun being with him.  

About a month before his death, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and he wasn't given long to live.  My dad, his one surviving brother, and two of his sisters traveled to Alabama (accompanied by my cousin Cindy who took awesome care of them all) to his funeral.  Uncle Ray had left the church in his early 20's, so it wasn't an LDS funeral in any way, shape or form.  I believe it was Methodist, the religion of his second wife, Sarah.  

It was the typical Methodist funeral, where the preacher does everything, including the life sketch.  Uncle Ray was buried in Sarah's family cemetery on her family farm, and my dad asked the preacher if he could dedicate the grave.  I don't think they were too impressed by this mormon ritual - until he got done. To have some guy - not even a preacher - got up there and gave this beautiful prayer, to dedicate this grave like he did? Impressive! He received a few compliments from the many attendee's, many of whom this was probably their first experience with an actual "mormon".  

Anyway... one of Uncle Ray's friends said he had a story to tell them - and he gave them his email address and my cousin Rena promptly emailed him when they got home.  I read the story at dad's house one day and had her forward it to me so I could have a copy as well.  This is Uncle Ray's story (and I'm guessing one could write a whole novel of stories just like this).  

my wife found the short story about uncle ray..........I was an air force pilot in Vietnam so if you have any questions just let me know..... 

the Cessna l-19 birddog was the first all metal fixed wing airplane the united states army flew during the Korean war.  the versatile 2 seat aircraft was still around during the Vietnam conflict and primarily used for recon, convoy escort and forward air control.  during the Vietnam war, 469 bird dogs were lost to all causes so you knew if you were assigned to a bird dog unit your days were probably numbered.   

captain ray dial was a bird dog pilot in 1968.  if ray had been playing football he would have started for the Alabama crimson tide cause he was at the top of his game.  not quite as big as a current 210 pound strong safety, ray dial was still a badazz back in the day.   he survived the tet offensive in 1968 and was attached to the 9th infantry division near Saigon.  capt dial was flying out of phu loy,  relatively close to the iron triangle region of Vietnam.  the whole countryside was controlled by the viet cong/north Vietnamese regulars who made their way down the ho chi minh trail.  ray's job was simple..........go out and let the bad guys get a good shot at your airplane.........when they start shooting you call in the 9th infantry and the real shooting begins.  being a decoy was misleading the enemy troops into a very hazardous situation but remember you are flying an airplane that is 35 years old.  ray said the most bullets he got hit with in one day was three and his airplane was hit 49 times in a three month period.  

the 9th infantry division had a newbie operations officer and the fresh from the united states lt. col. wanted to take a flight around the area and see first hand what his troops were up against.  capt dial volunteered to show the new guy around the operations area and they took off in the Cessna bird dog.  flying plenty high to keep ground fire down, the two toured the dangerous area around phu loy.  capt dial was surprised when he saw a viet cong flag on a tree line close to a series of rice paddies.  the viet cong would put up makeshift structures and put a flag on top as a decoy to get an American airplane close.  the viet cong would then open up with their automatic weapons and machine guns and scratch another bird dog.  both sides had their decoys........... 

ray dial showed the new operations office the flag near the rice paddy and of course the new guy wanted to go down and have a look. dial took a look at the terrain and decided the best way to approach the ambush was to come down beside a tree line that ran almost to the trees where the flag was located.  get as close as you can to the trees, under them if possible, and pop up over the tree line to show the colonel the viet cong flag.  knowing you are going to get shot-up, capt dial pushes the nose of the bird dog down and soon they are smoking along at red line, 130mph, just a couple of feet off the trees to their left and a couple of feet off the ground.  the structure was just beyond the upcoming tree line and at the last second capt dial popped up over the rapidly approaching tree line to show his passenger the enemy flag.  

coming up and over the trees and capt dial saw the enemy flag pole was a whole lot taller than he had anticipated.  the bamboo flagpole was right in front of his airplane...........emergency rudder was the only thing that kept the propeller on the airplane.  ray jammed full rudder and the prop just missed the bamboo pole.  ray is a sunday school teacher in enterprise and "oh cheese whiz" is all he will admit to saying when he saw the flagpole infront of his airplane............and air force pilot would be much more descriptive and colorful but that is another story.  

moments like this generally take some reflection by the pilot and after a couple of minutes capt dial asked the ops officer if he saw the Vietcong flag when they popped up over the tree line............the passenger told the pilot the flag is still with us, you ripped it off the flagpole and its wrapped around the airplane landing gear.  the prop missed the bamboo pole but the main gear hit the flagpole and the ropes got tangled in the gear...........it ripped the whole shooting match off and its attached to the airplane. 

capt ray dial landed his bird dog at a nearby friendly field and gave the flag to his passenger.  ray would have kept the viet cong flag but he already had one from his days before he started flying airplanes and helicopters.  before becoming a pilot, capt ray dial was an American advisor to a vietnamese infantry unit that normally took flags away from viet cong soldiers in combat.............ray just kept one of those. 

so, capt ray dial from enterprise, alabama, was the only pilot in the war in vietnam to capture a north vietnamese enemy flag from his airplane while flying. 

bad azz........you bet.

Here's a story, of a man named....

Ebenezer...

My son is such an optimist. He figured he didn't need to finish his genealogy project on Wednesday night because school was destined to be closed on Thursday. I made him do it anyway. School wasn't closed. Then it was. Coarse, we didn't find this out until the kids were already at the bus stop. So they came home and said "HA! I knew I didn't have to finish my project last night."

Yeah yeah yeah... bite me

So how'd he do?

First off, I have to explain that an epiphany came to me as I was in the shower, where they always come, and I remembered that my big brother, sibling #1, compiled a book just last year about my dad's family. This includes family information, genealogy information going back as far as the eye can see, life histories, patriarchial blessings, photos, and newspaper clippings. Anything and everything he could convince aunt Carol and the rest of his relatives to share with him. I forgot all about it. So I retrieved it from the corner of my desk where it has sat since I took posession of it last summer and did some research.

Thus...

#1... Five generation worksheet. This became very easy. I also remembered in that same epiphany that my son had to do a five generation worksheet for a scout merit badge. All it took was a little effort to find it. I automatically deducted points from his overall score as he double checked the instructions to find that the five generation sheet should take up 1/3 of the overall posterboard, and my lacsidaisical child (I don't even know what that means for sure or even if it's spelled right since my spellcheck won't seem to work, but it just rolls of the tongue so well, like Plaxico, I'm using it anyway), my lacsidaisical child decided his single sheet of type paper was more than big enough. I wonder if his teacher will notice?


#2... Family crest. Thanks to sibling #1, the wonderful and fabulous family history book included in the front cover the official family crest. Well, I don't know if it's the official one, he found it online, a place I couldn't peek at. Instructions didn't say anything about using information someone else found online.


#3... Family story. I did a bit of digging in my stuff and found the biography of Ebenezer Bryce. I handed this along with the family history book to my son and said "find a story you like." He decided after reading the first paragraph on Ebenezer Bryce that this was indeed his man. Ebenezer Bryce joined the church when he was 17 in Scotland. He wanted to sail to America but his dad didn't want him to go. He told his dad he would stay home, but when he became of age, he was going to leave anyway. So his dad gave him permission to leave. He eventually wound up in Salt Lake City where he lived with George Albert and Bathsheba Smith for a time, until he married his wife, Mary Ann. Eventually they settled in the St. George area, at the mouth of a canyon they named Bryce Canyon, which is now a National Park. He said of the canyon, "it's a heck of a place to lose a cow." I've never been there, but looking at this picture, I will totally take his word on it!

He also built a church in Pine Valley, Utah, where the attic rafters were built like a bottom of a ship. Ebenezer only agreed to build the church if he could do it his way, so being a boat builder by trade, he did it the only way he knew how! I've never been there either! Have you?


The boy wrote his story, and my 11 year old, an avid writer herself, read it, rolled her eyes and told him he needed to work on his story telling abilities. (The above written was MY story... which needs it's own work, I know.)

#4... family traditions. This was a bit hard for him since we have none. Certainly nothing passed down from family member to family member... none that I am aware of anyway. He told of eating Sunday dinners at grandma's house every week, and what we do for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and even the Easter egg hunts. He used lots of small descriptive words to get all 300 words, that was for sure.

#5... Pie chart. Turns out 69.some odd percent of my relatives come from England. Others come from Ireland, Scotland, and Denmark. 6% are unknown... as Canada doesn't count as a country in this pie chart project and one was apparently hatched in South Carolina in the early 1800's. The most exciting part of this pie chart was learning to make one on Excell.

#6... Map of the movement westward. Another difficult challenge, or so I thought. As luck would have it, dh's crazy grandma's insistence that I find out not just names, but details on her lineage came in handy. I never did find much, as old Sam Parker was hatched in the 1800's in Liverpool England. However, he arrived at Ellis Island. He moved to Elgin, Illinois where he farmed. He got married and had two children. He moved to Kemmerrer Wyoming and had his last child. He moved to Pocatello, Idaho as a railroad worker where he divorced his wife and the rest is history. That's all we needed... where did they start, and where did they end in Idaho and with whom. Easy peasy!

Extra credit included turning that five generation worksheet into a 7 generation worksheet which would have required the internet and several phone calls to relatives, as well as perhaps even hours of research at the family history library. Or perhaps we could have done a timeline of our family history beginning with the oldest ancestor. Rumor has it that mom can trace her line all the way back to Charlamagne... that was way more work that lacsidaisical child was willing to do. He's more of a "straight A's doing the bare minimum of work" kind of guy.

No internet was required in the making of this project. No late night phone calls to grandma begging for information she knows nothing about. It all came from a family book, my cedar chest, and many diligent hours of research from years past. And for that... I am quite proud if I do say so myself.