veterans tribute
veterans tribute
In honor of Veterans Day, The Stinger staff interviewed several veterans and created a series of Humans of The Hive, Hivecasts, and feature stories. We are thankful for all who have served and are still serving.
Embedded Files
Veteran Humans of the hive
Veteran Humans of the hive
Richard Knight
Richard Knight
USAF Chief Master Sergeant (Retired)
USAF Chief Master Sergeant (Retired)
"When I was seventeen years old, I started thinking about enlisting in the military. Two days after my eighteenth birthday, I took my oaths to serve four years in the US Air Force. That began a career of a total of forty years of active duty and active reserve. After basic training, I was assigned to an Air Force base in Germany for two years. After Germany, I was assigned to a base in France for eight months. I completed my four years active and then joined the active reserve. In January 1990, I was activated to active duty to serve in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. "
" In all of my service except for basic training and technical training, my job was to load aircraft. This was very interesting work. The types of planes that I worked on were really big cargo planes. One of the planes (a-C-5) was about as long as a football field. I retired in 1993. I go back to my home base sometimes to visit. While in the active reserve, I served in eight different countries. Veterans receive very good benefits for their service. We have health care and that includes medicine. In some cases, free travel is available."
by Robbie Young
Scott Cato
Scott Cato
U.S. Army Major (JROTC Instructor)
U.S. Army Major (JROTC Instructor)
"It was September of 1984 when I entered into the Army National Guard. I was in the Guard as a full time person. It was entitled Active Guard Reserve which gave me active duty status. In my 20th year, we were deployed to Iraq, so I’d been in for 20 years and never deployed anywhere, just did our annual training that we do once a year and other exercises that we participated in. But the only deployment I’ve ever been on was when we went to Iraq during Iraqi Freedom. And that was in 2003, we were notified that we were deployed to Iraq and I actually landed in Kuwait in February of 2004 and departed Iraq February of 2005. My unit was the 178th Field Artillery located here in Lancaster. First, we were a 8” self-propelled field artillery unit and then we later retrained and refitted as a MLRS unit. But when we got back from Iraq, the following year in ‘06, they disbanded our unit and turned it into an engineer unit. By the time they did all that,I decided to go ahead and retire cause I’m a true Redleg. I’m field artillery all the way."
by Robbie Young
jamie griffin
jamie griffin
US army
US army
“I don’t know if you know, but me and your dad [Tony Sutton] enlisted in the Marines together. Yeah and I got turned down in MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) because I'm legally blind in my left eye. And I got turned down in MEPS to go into the Marines, but your dad went, because me and him were going on a buddy system and then you know he got sent home because he had that heart murmur or something. But sometime later I just happened to be outside a recruiting station and an Army recruiter asked me if I ever thought about joining and I told him that I had always wanted to be in the Marine Core and then he said what happened, and I told him and he said well come see me and I did and then he told me that pretty much if they didn’t ask me a direct question, then don’t answer their question. So I did that and went into the Army.”
by Kensi Sutton
Cooper Ledbetter marines
Cooper Ledbetter marines
“So I still keep in touch with some of the guys I was in the Marine Corps with. But I have a really close buddy of mine. I call him Scoggins, because we always went by last names in the military. So I call him Scoggins. His name is Trey, but he really made an impact on me because we were kind of going through the same stuff. It was hard at the time in Kings Bay, it was really difficult. And we had each other to lean on. He had his issues, I had mine, and we kind of just talked to each other. I'm actually his son's godfather. So yeah, we're pretty close. We go out to Missouri and see him and they come out here. So yeah, that was one of my good buddies.”
by Kelsey Watson
Johnny Arant
Johnny Arant
US Army Vietnam War
US Army Vietnam War
"We had no control over that. You know in war you’re gonna lose friends and you’re gonna lose people that you think you just can’t do without being around them. I struggled emotionally by losing friends, and well, seeing people hurt. Those things are the most memorable. That's not a good memory but the good memory is knowing the people that you lost, and we lost some good friends. "
by Braxton Rollyson
Jeremy Nunnery Army/air force
Jeremy Nunnery Army/air force
“What ended up happening, it was something I wasn’t proud of. It’s a nasty story. I’ve told it in my class before, I told it in Sunday School. We had all of this equipment with us that you had to be accountable for, you could get in real trouble. ‘Cause basic training is so much different than regular, you had to worry about getting yelled at. We had bags, we had fake dummy weapons, and we had these flashlights that had these long things that you see the cops directing traffic with. The next morning, we wake up and we’re all tired, dirty, we’ve been out in the field for a week marching and doing all sorts of stuff. The drill instructor’s telling us to hurry up, hurry up. So, they’ve got these porta johns out there- it’s a nasty story- you can imagine HUNDREDS of soldiers out there. They’re all trying to use them before they get on these buses to head back. My number one concern is being on time and not leaving anything behind. It’s finally my turn. They’re rushing, they’re yelling, they’re banging on it. I accidentally dropped my flashlight. In the porta john. That’s been out in the Texas sun for who knows how long. With all these people, you can imagine how nasty it was. So I’m standing there thinking ‘what do I do?’ Obviously, on a normal day I know what I’m doing, leaving it. But I was like ‘man I’m gonna get in so much trouble if I leave it.’ So I ended up taking the barrel of one of the weapons- it was fake anyways so it didn’t work- and fished it out. I go out and try to clean it the best I can, but then I realize, y’know, that’s gross. For whatever reason, I don’t know what I was thinking, I should have just kept it. When I got back to gather up, with air quotes, I ‘accidentally’ swapped it with somebody else’s. So by the time we got back to the barracks and we were cleaning all our stuff, the guy who had mine-they have our mark on them I don't’ know what I was thinking- he comes up to me and is like: ‘hey man I accidentally got yours while we were out in the field I’m sorry bout that. I tried to use it, I think it got wet ‘cause it’s not working. So when we get a pass later I’ll go buy you a new one.’ I never once corrected him. Not only did I not have to carry it around, he also bought me a new one and apologized. I told it in church and school as a lesson to learn. I always use it in the context that when you’re up against the wall, your character comes out. And mine was exposed that day.”
by Michaela Catoe
Veteran Hivecasts
Veteran Hivecasts
Veteran's Day Podcast Robbie.mp4by Robbie Young
Veterans Day HiveCast - Kelsey Watson.mp4by Kelsey Watson
Braxton Veterans Podcast.mp4by Braxton Rollyson
Jamie Griffin; Veteran Package.mp4by Kensi Sutton
Veteran features
Veteran features
A Knight to remember
A Knight to remember
by Robbie Young
Veterans Day, one of the few holidays in the U.S. that has a more serious meaning than others. On this day, we honor those that have served our country and pay tribute to those lost at war. Every veteran has a story, and Mr. Richard Knight is no different.
When he was 18 years old, Mr. Knight took his oaths to serve in the Air Force. This was in 1951, during the Korean War. However, he was never deployed to Korea during this time. Instead, he was deployed to an Air Force base in Germany but got moved to France later on. He finished his 4 years of active duty and then joined the active reserve. But in January 1990, he was activated to active duty to serve in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. After this, he retired as a Chief Master Sergeant, which is the highest rank an enlisted soldier can get in the Air Force.
His job in the Air Force was to load aircraft, specifically huge cargo planes. Some of the aircraft he worked on were as big as a football field. He has had a 40 long career in the Air Force, both active duty and active reserve. He also has served in 8 different countries while in the Air Force. This was pretty impressive for someone who had never been outside of Lancaster before enlisting! But this was not the best thing about the military in his opinion. “It was a turning point in my life, I matured fast and I was more current on world situations and current events because up to that point, I had never been anyplace,” Knight said. He may not live in Buford or have gone to Buford High School but his son, Richie, is the director of the Multipurpose Building here at Buford.
I am thankful for this great man along with all who have served in the military. We live in the greatest country in the world thanks to the men and women who left their homes and livelihoods to protect our freedoms. I encourage you to spend some time on Friday thanking a veteran for their service.
Page updated
Report abuse