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Marching with Ancestors
By: Chuck Dean / Vet 2 Vet
Publisher’s Note: In honor of Veterans
Day this month, we proudly highlight our
Vet-2-Vet columnist Chuck Dean.
My grandfather, Francis Dean, participated in the battle
for Elizabethtown, in North Carolina’s Cape Fear region.
And on August 27, 1781 the small contingent of patriots
crushed a larger force of British loyalists.
He was an Irish immigrant that became a soldier in
this country’s new army. In 1783, at the end of the war,
Francis was granted land on the frontier as payment for
his wartime service.
He set out immediately for the Smokey Mountain
wilderness to claim his land on the French Broad River,
what is now Tennessee. There he built a tavern/meeting house and
donated 50 acres of his granted land to establish the second oldest
town in Tennessee -Dandridge, named after America’s first First Lady,
Martha (Dandridge) Washington.
When I joined the Army in 1963, I had no idea that I was following in
the footsteps of one of America’s first veterans. Only later did I discover
this wonderful heritage.
Perhaps it’s why I wanted to be a soldier from an early age. I
wonder (this could be stretching things) if DNA markers are involved?
Interesting thought, but who knows?
Over the years, I have met many veterans that have children, or are
a child of a veteran, that joined because they were directly influenced,
and inspired, by an ancestor’s service. Likewise, I’ve met many “Army
brats”, “Navy brats”, “Air Force brats, or “Marine Corps
brats” that grew up immersed in military life in career
military homes.
With little deviation, these people make some of the
finest service people in the world. And America can be
thankful they took this well-trodden path.
In the late ‘90s I had the honor of pinning parachute
wings on my son at his jump school graduation. It was the
same school I graduated from in the early ‘60s.
He was stationed with the same army unit I was
many years earlier. I’m proud of his many awards and achievements
performed at levels that I never did.
He held to the standards; some I had taught him over the years and
exceeded those standards in his own way.
So, here’s another salute to veterans, and those that will follow.
You’re invaluable.
Chuck Dean served as an Army paratrooper in Vietnam and
through that experience was led to address the many transitional
issues veterans struggle with. He is the author of several important
books for veterans.
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November 2023