Everyday Patriot

Colonel Robert Donald Taplett was born on December 10, 1918, in Tyndall, South Dakota. He graduated from the University of South Dakota, and he was a member of Phi Delta Theta and the US Army ROTC. After graduating in 1940, he resigned from his Army commission and joined the US Marine Corps as a Second Lieutenant instead. Colonel Taplett was assigned to the USS Salt Lake City and was berthed in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the beginning of World War II. The USS Salt Lake City was one of the few ships not disabled during the initial attacks and could pursue the Japanese fleet. Colonel Taplett would spend the war at sea in the Pacific aboard the USS Salt Lake City, participated in the Battle of the Coral Sea, The Battle of the Aleutian Islands, and provided ship-to-shore fire support for the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.   After the war, Colonel Robert Taplett would serve as the commanding officer of the Naval Supply Barracks in Clearfield, the commanding officer of ...

Chief Warrant Officer Hal Hooper Reichle was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 25, 1963.   He was always committed to service and briefly considered joining the priesthood.   Instead, on July 4, 1982, he enlisted in the US military. CWO Reichle would initially serve first as a Corporal in the US Marine Corps before transferring service into the US Army and training as a helicopter pilot. He would deploy with the 24th Infantry to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield and the Gulf War.   On February 20, 1991, Chief Warrant Officer HalReichle's OH58 went down during a storm. He rests in Marietta National Cemetery in Canton, Georgia. He was an incredibly giving man. Chief Warrant Officer Reichle was especially known for a "Robin Hood" style of giving, either by trying to slip money into a stranger's pockets or shoveling snow for the neighbors while wearing a snow camo suit so he wouldn't be seen. This form of service to others would ...

Technical Sergeant Robert Kevin Hodges was born on December 17, 1962, in Rantoul, Illinois.  He enlisted in the US Air Force following his high school graduation on August 19, 1981. He was assigned to the 16th Special Operations Squadron and deployed to the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm Desert Shield and the Gulf War with the crew of Spirit 03, an AC-130 gunship. On January 31, 1991, while supporting a Marine unit struggling against an Iraqi Missile post, Spirit 03 went missing and was believed to be shot down.  The plane would be located off the coast of Kuwait on March 6, 1991.   The crew's appropriated remains were repatriated shortly after. Technical Sergeant Robert Hodges rests at the Barrancas National Cemetery in Pensacola, Florida. * Read about a.d. elliott's Everyday Patriot Project here* ****** ********************************* a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller living in Salem, Virginia.  In addition...