Service To Country A Family Tradition

My family has been celebrating this year's Memorial Day Weekend by spending a few days at Surfside Beach with our cousin Billy Jenn and his family and friends as we all helped Billy party on his 50th birthday. Billy actually turned 50 in April but the celebration was delayed until this weekend so that his daughter Julie could be present. Julie Jenn, the valedictorian of her Columbia High School graduating class, recently completed her spring semester at Texas A&M University. So with Julie home from college and Billy and Judy's younger daughter Bethany free from her classes at CHS for the holiday weekend, it was time to PARTY!!!!!!

But while those gathering at Surfside honored Billy Jenn as he reached a major milestone in his life, it is another Billy Jenn who deserves recognition and great thanks from all of us this Memorial Day Weekend. Lt. William C. Jenn, an Army Air Corps pilot, was killed in action in Europe on June 25, 1944. The Billy Jenn for whom the current Columbia-Brazoria school board trustee was named, was only 25 years old when he perished in a plane crash during World War II. A graduate of San Jacinto High School and Texas A&M University, Lt. William C. Jenn, my father Rex Gupton's first cousin, left behind his wife, Bernice Jenn, and a baby son. He had received his wings at Ellington Field and had served five months as an American pilot in England prior to his tragic death.

Memorial Day was established in 1865 to commemorate U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. Each year American flags are placed on the graves of, not only those brave soldiers who lost their lives in the line of battle, but also are placed in all cemeteries across the nation to recognize the resting places of those who served their country with honor and dignity, as many members of my immediate family have done over the years. I am extremely proud of my own father for having served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. I have included several photos with this Memorial Day story of my Dad and other family members and close friends who deserve the gratitude of each of us for their personal sacrifice.

When my father was elderly and in the grips of Alzheimer's disease, I took him to see the movie "Saving Private Ryan" starring Tom Hanks, Matt Damon and Tom Sizemore. The Steven Spielberg film was a World War II epic about an attempt by a group of American soldiers headed by multiple Academy Award winner Tom Hanks to find the Private Ryan of the film's title (Matt Damon) in the European battlefront and return him safely to American soil. Military leaders had discovered that three of the Damon character's brothers had all been killed in action and efforts were immediately begun to retrieve Private Ryan before he met the same fate as his brothers.

My father was also one of four brothers from the same family to volunteer for service following the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. The four sons of Samuel Morris Gupton and his wife Mattie Eula Gupton -- Thurman Morris Gupton, Rex Gupton, Marvin Aubrey Gupton and Samuel Dock Gupton -- made their family proud by their service in the various branches of the military during World War II. Luckily for the Guptons of West Columbia, all four brothers survived during the war and returned home to raise their families. My Uncle Thurman, the eldest in his family (born November 11, 1911), was a captain in the U.S. Navy from 1941-46 in both the Pacific and European theaters. He is pictured seated at a table with other Naval officers (Thurman is wearing the white uniform in the center of the picture), in a family portrait with his wife Gladys and daughters Dolores (standing between her parents) and baby girl Peggy Lou during the war years, as well as in an individual portrait. My father Rex Gupton (born May 18, 1921) is pictured with a fellow Naval seaman in one photo, loading a large bullet shirtless on one of the Navy ships he was assigned to during the war, and in his individual portrait. His younger brother Hank (Marvin Aubrey Gupton, born December 24, 1922) is pictured both alone in his Army Air Corps photo and in a group shot in front of one of the planes he flew on (Uncle Hank is kneeling, second from right). S.D., the youngest member of my father's family (born May 23, 1925), was a merchant marine serving in the 354th Infantry between 1943 and 1944.

Their cousin Max Hagan, the son of Eula Gupton's sister Minnie and her husband Pete Hagan, also was in the Navy during World War II. Max currently lives in Lake Jackson with his wife Betty. Edgar T. (E.T.) Jenn Jr., the older brother of the Lt. William C. Jenn who was killed in action during World War II and the father of Tommy and Billy Jenn who currently own and operate Jenn's Furniture in West Columbia, was also a pilot who was stationed in San Marcos, Texas, when he learned of his brother's death in 1944. E.T. Jenn, born in 1916, was a major in the U.S. Army Air Corps who piloted B-17's and B-29's. The Jenn brothers who were pilots during World War II were the sons of my grandfather Samuel Morris "Buff" Gupton's sister Willie who married Edgar Thomas Jenn Sr.

Another family member who served during World War II was Dolores Gupton's husband, Johnny Rader. John F. Rader III was a Phm2/C with the U.S. Naval Reserve in the 1940's. Johnny was a second lieutenant with the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. Dolores's first husband, Lloyd Brandt, was in the U.S. Navy prior to marrying Thurman and Gladys's eldest daughter. Lloyd was the father of my cousins Ace and Cindy Brandt.

My mother's brother, Howard Robert Giesler, also served during the Korean War. Uncle Hob was a combat medic with the Army from 1951 through 1952 during the war in Korea. He was honored with a combat medic's badge while in the Army. He is pictured standing in his Army uniform while home on leave at his East Columbia home, a photo I am sure my mother took of her younger brother. Howard Giesler still lives in East Columbia today.

Danny Louis Broadway, who was born February 1, 1950, and died November 22, 1976, was the son of Yvonne and Jack Broadway. He served bravely in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam conflict. Danny Louis was a true hero and always will be in my eyes. He was away fighting an unpopular war in a foreign land while I was attending high school in West Columbia. He was the nephew of my mother, Verna Giesler Gupton, and her brother Hob. Yvonne Broadway was their older sister. Yvonne and Jack's eldest son, Randy Broadway, was in the U.S. Army during the era of the Vietnam War. Hank Gupton, my first cousin who is the son of Marvin Aubrey and Terry Gupton, was in the Air Force during the 1960s.

My cousin Peggy Lou Gupton's husband Kenneth R. Boone was a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. Ken Boone, a West Columbia football star as a running back on the Roughnecks team that advanced deep in the playoffs in 1958, was a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1966 through 1970. The former college football player at Tulsa and TCU and current coach and athletic director at the local West Brazos Junior High School, served in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968.

While Peggy Lou's daughter Kim and her husband Tim Clinch were helping Billy Jenn celebrate his 50th birthday this weekend at Surfside, Peggy Lou and Ken Boone were in Galveston with members of their West Columbia High School graduating class of 1959 celebrating their 50-year class reunion.

My wife Peggy's older brother Ronald Douglas Hall, also a West Columbia High School graduate from the mid-1960s, served during the Vietnam War also. Ronnie Hall was in the U.S. Air Force and served proudly in Vietnam. He is pictured in his Air Force uniform.

Omer Lloyd Hall, the father of Ronnie and Peggy Hall, was in the Army Air Corps, having served as a gunner in fighter planes during World War II. It was an honor to marry into a family with such an excellent track record of service to their country in times of war. I always enjoyed listening to my father and his brother Hank, as well as Peggy's father and her brother Ronnie talk of their experiences from many years ago when each of them was merely a pawn on the chess board of their respective era's wars. None of them ever wanted to speak about the horrors of war that each of them more than likely witnessed first hand. My father spoke more to his children about the brotherhood he and his felllow sailors experienced while at sea. Daddy's memories about World War II, or at least those he chose to share with us, usually involved fun times and exploits he was involved in with his friends in the Navy.

The funniest story he would tell about himself when he was in the Navy involved him picking a fight with the wrong guy. Daddy said that he challenged some sailor to a boxing match on board their battleship, unaware that the guy had been a Golden Gloves champion prior to joining the Navy. Rex said that old boy "whooped his ass" from the beginning of the bout to its end, which could not have come quickly enough for my father. He often encouraged my brother Cody and I to join the Navy when we finished high school, saying it would be an opportunity to see the world like he did during the war with Japan and make us better men. Neither of us followed his advice. That was probably a mistake but, as they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty!

My brother-in-law and my mother's brother have both only begun talking to me in recent years about their experiences in Vietnam and Korea respectively. When I was younger, both took the tact that my father had, opting to talk more about the nonviolent experiences each had lived through while in the Air Force and Army in their two different wars. Uncle Hob has told me more of the horrible things he witnessed and experienced as a medic during the Korean War the last few times we have had conversations. He confided in me that today, at the age of 81, he still has trouble keeping extremely violent and gory memories out of his thoughts and dreams. The nightmares my uncle must continue to live with today shed a totally different light on what war is all about. Just like the extremely realistic bloodshed, death and mayhem viewers of "Saving Private Ryan" witnessed when watching that movie from a few years back, the fathers of my wife and I and all three brothers of my Dad took those nightmares they each had experienced in time of war to their graves. My father passed away in January, 2001, at the age of 79. He was the last of his family to die, following in order his sister Ruby Nell in 1977, his brother S.D. in 1995, brother Thurman in 1996 and brother Hank in 1997. My father-in-law Omer Hall was born in 1921 and died in 1994. Omer is pictured in uniform with his arm around his wife Dorothy, and in a group shot taken in front of the fighter plane he flew on during World War II. He is pictured at right, kneeling with a bomber jacket on.

My grandfather's younger brother, Phillip Leslie Gupton, who was born in 1897 and died in 1977 at the age of 80, served during World War I in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1918 to 1919. Uncle Phil, who along with his wife Margaret lived next door to my family throughout my youth, was among the last remaining World War I veterans living in West Columbia. Among the others were Delbert Grandstaff, the husband of my second grade teacher Olive Grandstaff but more well known as Bing Crosby's father-in-law (The Grandstaff's daughter Katherine married the famous crooner in the late 1950s), and Dewey Baugh, who used to sell cars in West Columbia and was also the husband of a former second grade teacher at West Columbia Elementary, Ruth Baugh.

Uncle Phil's youngest son, John Walter Gupton, served in the medical corps for the U.S. Navy during World War II. My Dad's cousin J.W. Gupton, born in 1926 and passing away in 2006 at the age of 80 (the same age his father died), earned his veterinarian's degree from Texas A&M University and was a longtime vet in the Richmond-Rosenberg area of southeast Texas.

Members of my family did not sit idle during the 19th century either. Thanks to research done years ago by my uncle, Judge Thurman Gupton, and James Stephen Gupton, I learned that several relatives participated in the war between the states. Henrich Jansen, born in 1819 in Denmark, settled in West Columbia, Texas, in 1849. Henry Jansen fought in the John B. Hood Brigade for the Confederacy in the "Battle of the Wilderness." He was called from the ranks to mend and rebuild the many gun stocks broken in the "hand-to-hand" fighting between the soldiers of the South and the North. After the Civil War he returned to his home and spent the remainder of his life in West Columbia. He passed away on Dec. 1, 1900. His daughter Dorothy (born in 1864 and died in 1927) married Samuel Doctor Gupton, who was the father of my grandfather, Samuel Morris Gupton.

Other distant family members who fought for the South during the Civil War were Robert Gupton, born in 1840 in Franklin County, North Carolina, who died during the Civil War, and Jesse Gupton, also born in 1843 in Franklin County, North Carolina, who froze to death in Fort Delaware federal prison where he was being held prisoner. He was 20 years old when he died on October 13, 1863. Research of my family's roots reveals that my Gupton ancestors came to Texas from North Carolina.

Nonfamily members I have included in this Memorial Day feature are Robert Earl Jackson of Brazoria, the son of my good friend Charlie Jackson, who is currently serving our country as a U.S. Marine, and Cherelle Garner of New Mexico, presently in Afghanistan as a member of the Army. Cherelle is my son Bret Gupton's close friend and fellow Texas Aggies Corps of Cadets member who has graduated from Texas A&M and is now fulfilling her obligation with the U.S. Army. Robert Jackson was an outstanding football and basketball player for the Columbia Roughnecks who remains close to my family today.

Those reading this blog, I ask your prayers for Cherelle and Robert as they continue to serve our country today. They put their lives on the line to keep our country free and deserve our respect and support, as do the following West Columbia area soldiers who are presently in Iraq or Afghanistan: Captain Mark Reid (a fellow 2000 graduate of CHS with my son Brian) and his cousin Captain John Reid, Phillip Fortenberry and Matthew Harris of the Army; Airmen Chris Romero and Christa Romero of the Air Force; and Seth Michael Phillips of the Marines. Other current Marines from the West Columbia area are my son Blake's good friends and classmates Kevin Hartney and Justin Keith, and Jason LaPointe of the Army. My coworker Lee Wikoff and his wife Kerri's son Kiley is currently in the U.S. Navy, serving overseas in Japan.

There is no better time than today, Memorial Day, to reflect with pride over the service to our country these family members and dear friends have given. Each of them are my heroes, those like my father and father-in-law who have passed on as well as the young men and women who continue to put their lives on the line daily for our continued freedom. And, most of all, members of my family should take a moment to recall Lt. William C. Jenn, my father's first cousin, who made the ultimate sacrifice by giving his life in the call of duty during World War II. Few of us alive today had the opportunity to know the Billy Jenn our cousin and good friend who remains a business owner, community leader and excellent husband, father, son and brother was named after when he was born on April 14, 1959. That is our loss, and sadly the same kind of loss that so many families across America must deal with because of a dreadful thing called war.

Pray for our troops and keep each of them in your thoughts as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as around the globe, continue. Visit the graves of our fallen soldiers on Monday out of respect for their service to our great country. It is the least we dan do.