Thank You to All Who Serve

Veterans' Day is a chance to say Thank You to all who served and sacrificed for our country. 

We couldn’t be prouder to work with a great group of guys right here at Unified representing all branches of the Armed Forces.  Special shout out to the veterans here at Unified.

Army Veterans Matt Tedford and Marcus Lavender; Navy Vets Larry Dennison and Dave Balcom; Air Force Veterans Dennis Amyx and Jeff Welton; And Marine Corps Veterans Aaron Boyer and Bruce McDonald. 

I was able to track them down this week and learn a little more about their service years.

ARMY

Matt Tedford served early to late 1990’s.  He was stationed in Germany and served in Desert Shield/Storm with 1^st Armored Division VII Corps – IRON KNIGHTS. Matt finished service at Fort Knox as a non-commissioned officer and instructor at the US Army Armor School.

Marcus Lavender served in the 1980’s at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 82^nd Airborne.  Fun fact – Marcus’ grandfather was the   head of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia for over 40 years.

NAVY

Dave Balcom served onboard USS Enterprise stationed out of San Francisco (7^th fleet) from 1985-89 as an E-5 Interior Communications Electrician.  He sailed around the world twice hitting ports in Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Australia, Pakistan, Africa, Italy and France

Larry Dennison served in the Navy twice; once from 1992-94 stationed in Atsugi Japan with VFA 195 Dambusters attached to the USS independence operation southern watch.  From 2000 to 2002 he was an electrician on board the USS John F. Kennedy in Jacksonville Florida.  They were the first ship on scene off the coast of New York after 9/11.  Then Larry spent 2002-2005 on recruiting duty in Goldsboro, North Carolina. 

AIR FORCE

Dennis Amyx served in the Air Force in the early 1990’s.  He was stationed at Moody AFB in Valdosta, GA. Where he worked as a document control clerk in munitions.

Jeff Welton served in the Air Force from 1986 to 1993 and left the service as a Captain. He was an Air Weapon’s Director (ran long range search radar to assist pilots with their fighter missions).  Jeff was stationed in Florida (Tyndall AFB and Eglin AFB) and served for a year in Iceland.  He did many temporary duty assignments in the middle east (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Oman) and Europe (Germany, Denmark and Spain). 

(side note here) I actually learned about contrails from Jeff.  I always wondered what the white streaks across the sky left by jets and airplanes were.  They’re contrail.  Now you know!

MARINES

Aaron Boyer served in the USMC from 1993-1995 at Camp LeJeune, NC.  He was a Computer Programmer coding in Ada, a language, according to Aaron, that no one has ever heard of. This explains at lot!

Bruce McDonald, Sergeant, USMC - 1989-1998 served as a personnel clerk, database administrator, and marksmanship instructor.  Bruce participated in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia and other combat operations in the Middle East from 1992-1995.

Thank you, guys, and thank you to all veterans. 

This is worth sharing again. Miss my dad every day. He was a fierce soldier in WWII but a gentle, fun, loving 'Pop' to his 13 grandkids.❤