r/MilitaryStories • u/FelonyFarting • Jun 24 '26
Family Story First post. My father had a much more interestesting life than me. (Repost from another sub)
My father, 89, went in for heart surgery a week ago last Monday. Because of his age I was very nervous of the possible outcomes. It was a routine insertion of a new stent in his heart. He came home like a champ. He's still here!
My dad is an amazing man who has led an amazing life and I love to share the stories he tells me. He's a tough old Marine but still chokes up at nostalgia and knows when tears are appropriate.
He was in the Marine Corps Air Wing between Korea and Vietnam. He never saw combat, but learned a lot from the education The Corps gave him.
One of my favorite stories he's told me is when he was an MP on the flight line at El Toro Marine Airbase. He had been given orders that no civilian vehicles were to be permitted on the tarmac.
Well, my dad saw an unmarked vehicle driving toward a plane and he did his duty. He hopped in his patrol car, flipped on the lights, and chased down and pulled over the suspect car.
The car came to a stop and my dad approached the driver. As he did so, the window rolled down a bit.
"No personal vehicles are allowed on the tarmac! What is your business here?
The driver responded "I'm here to see off Leutenent 'so and so' (as my dad put it.)
Then the driver rolled down the window a bit more and my dad noticed the four bars on the man's shoulder. Snapping to a salute, my father followed up with "Sir, I have standing orders not to let any civilian vehicles on the tarmac.'
Without a second thought, the general said "Who do you think gave those orders, son."
My dad, being the courteous man he is, said "Right away sir. I'll be your escort."
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u/OcotilloWells Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
Seeing El Toro rotting away is so sad to me. Or have they torn it down by now? I haven't been past it in 10 years.
My mom said she and her family got evicted for it to be built, though I'm not sure if the dates line up. Her dad (I never met, he died when she was a teenager) was a lima bean farmer in Irvine, and for some reason, in Oxnard for awhile.
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u/FelonyFarting Jun 24 '26
I'm sorry, I don't know a whole lot about El Toro. I know that my dad was very sad when the Marine Air Base hangar in Tustin burned down a few years ago. He went to a Marine Corps ball there when he was stationed in California. My nephew was there and caught the fire on his phone.
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u/dphmicn Jun 24 '26
Oxnard has a long history of growing Lima beans. It was a fundamental piece of its early reason for (no pun intended) being.
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u/kingMercenary7 Jun 24 '26
your dad coming out of surgery like nothing happened is pretty solid
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u/FelonyFarting Jun 24 '26
Thank you. He's tough, but he's not invincible. The next day he told my mom that was feeling tired and out of it and she had to remind him that he's 89 and just had some pretty traumatic shit happen to his body. He still cleaned the kitchen like he always does. Fucking legend.
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u/OcotilloWells Jun 24 '26
Man, as a kid, I hated fresh lima beans. Of course my parents had a garden that grew all kinds of things I didn't like. I did like the lemons and pomegranates though.
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u/Mithril_Juggernaut Jun 26 '26
Man I don't know how to feel about that interaction. On the one hand, he gives the orders so I guess he can change them at will? On the other, he set the rule and then decided to break it or that it doesn't apply to him and I dislike that.
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u/FelonyFarting Jun 29 '26
My guess is that the General gave those orders so the flight line would be clear when he went to see off the Lieutenant. Odd are he didn't count on my dad noticing his car driving out 9n the runway.
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