Published: September 12, 2008 10:57 am      

With honors

Military tradition spans 100 years for family

DUNCAN — There are families who have a history of military service that is passed from generation to generation.

In 1898, John S. Dyer Sr. was born. There was no prediction that more than 100 years later, his grandson, Charles Dyer, 28, would continue the legacy of military service. And for John S. Dyer II, 71, when he reflects on a son that came along late in his life, he gets just a bit choked up.

While the history of the Dyer family serving in the military dates back to the Civil War, it also extends to the maternal side of Charles’ family. John Dyer married a woman who also comes from a strong military background. A week ago, Jan Dyer and Charles, a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, traveled to Arlington National Cemetery for a memorial service for her father, Charles’ grandfather, U.S. Army Maj. Richard Smith who died June 6. The memorial service was Sept. 5. Jan said it took two months to complete the paperwork so Smith could be buried in Arlington.

Charles, stationed in Camp Pendleton, Calif., carried Smith’s ashes to the East Coast for the memorial service, Dyer said. “It was a full military escort by Charles.”



Military honors

Charles Dyer is the youngest of the three children of John and Jan Dyer of Bray. He and his wife, Valerie, and their daughter, Hayley, are at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He had completed his time as a U.S. Marine Corps soldier, when he decided to re-enlist and serve a tour of duty in Iraq. He visited his parents in February 2007, about two weeks before deployment. It was a year of uncertainty for the entire Dyer clan. But he returned safely. He now serves as Guard Chief over a 22-man Marine guard force and a 4-man REACT team to keep order over an area referred to as 41 area.

Transporting his grandfather’s ashes was an honor his mother is most proud of. She shared a story of a moment that happened at the Baltimore airport.

“There were two females who just came back from Afghanistan. Charles, he stood up and was in his civvies (civilian clothes), walked over and shook their hands, and said, ‘thank you ma’am, for serving our country. They had no idea he was military.”

Jan said she’s learned a lot from having a military father, husband and son.

“It teaches you a lot of patience and it increases your respect for all of the military. Anyone who is in the military or some kind of law enforcement are on call 24/7. These have to be very strong people. The families have to be very understanding, if that phone rings, and they have to go right away. Like deployment is on such and such day. We’re just a close-knit family. We try to understand everything that happens and we’re open. We have a good deal of love.”

Jan is especially defendant of the troops.

“The hair on the back of my neck stands up when someone starts talking bad about them. You really hear it with this election. But, we’ve had one bloody war on this continent, the Civil War. We don’t need another bloody war on this continent.” And she said, it doesn’t matter whether people agree on the war - it’s that people lose sight of the fact that the troops need support.

She said that her son gets asked plenty about the presidential election and who he might vote for.

“His response? Charles says, ’It does not matter to me, I will work for whoever the boss is,” she said.

“Charlie, he’s been a joy to me and an inspiration,” said John Dyer. “I tell him, ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to go through this life without knowing you.”

As Jan said, “When he puts on that uniform, it’s all business. It’s a complete different persona.” She wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to escort her father to his final resting place.

Jan, 66, said the experience was amazing.

“It’s the first time I’ve gotten to see a lot of things, to see the War Memorials. Oh my gosh, to see Arlington, where they are doing 10 to 17 funerals a day and losing up to 1,000 a day of World War II veterans.” She was awestruck. It’s something she believes every American should have witness to.

“I wish that those who do not get a lump in their throat and tear in their eye when they see a flag coming down the street and/or a group of military in formation would do some research on what this actually means. Maybe they would understand that this is what gives them the right to be complacent. Standing in front of the Vietnam Wall when in D.C. for my dad’s funeral, even though there is not a name there that I recognize, I thought about how many friends and family members were affected by each of those who gave their lives. Then I think about how many more there were in the Civil War, World War II, Korea and all the “undeclared” fighting theaters. I think I could write an entire article about the meaning of the symbols and the feelings about all of them. The red stripes on the Marine uniform are called “blood stripes” and are not worn until the Marine has the Corporal rank. It symbolizes those Marines who lost their lives in some of the most blood skirmishes in the early years of the Corp,” she said.





A tradition of military history

Dyer said his father, Dyer Sr., joined the Army in 1917 and was called up but never had to go overseas for service.

“Down the line, my older half-brother went in, in 1942. He went into Occupied Japan, the Aleutian Islands and it was in 1946 when they released him,” Dyer said.

Only a few short years later, in 1958, Dyer continued the family tradition.

“I joined the Army. I was fixin’ to turn 21 years old. I got in the Army and they were short of cooks. I enjoyed my tour. I volunteered for three years and served 90 days less than that, they deactivated the tour,” he said.

His job as a cook in the Army provided him with many wonderful memories.

“As an Army cook, I was known as one of the only humans that could take good food and make it taste like human waste without running it through the human body,” Dyer shared and laughed heartily.

Dyer said he met his wife when she was only three days past 16 and he was 21, at the base skating rink in Washington state. They will celebrate 49 years of marriage on Dec. 26, he said. They married when she was 17.

“My wife’s grandfather was with the Corp of Engineers at Richland-Kennewick-Pasco up along the Columbia Gorge,” he said. He admits that when he and Jan met, he didn’t automatically sweep her off her feet.

“I literally knocked her off her feet - at the skating rink,” he laughed. Dyer, 71, who is now an ordained minister, said he has a great admiration and respect for women.

“You know, I told my boys, you can treat me any way you want, but if I ever catch you treating your mom in any disrespectful way, I’ll take you out in the backyard and deal with you.” But his lighter side comes out as he recalls what he told Charles after his son finished Marine bootcamp. The older Dyer, after sizing his son up, decided that maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. In good spirit though, Dyer said he never had to worry about his sons being disrespectful of their mother. Charles is the youngest of the three Dyer offspring. The oldest, John Sydney Dyer III, 48, and daughter, Amy, 28, have somewhat followed also in their parent’s footsteps. Jan works in the medical field as does daughter, Amy, who is a Registered Nurse in Tennessee. The oldest Dyer son works in the heating and air conditioning industry. His father laughs when he talks about tradition of the John Dyer name being broken, when John Dyer III named his son Montana.

As Dyer continues sharing his thoughts, it’s evident that he is proud of his family and what they’ve accomplished. It also is interesting to hear him talk about veterans who served in the wars.

“I have a deep respect for veterans. When I see these older gentleman, wearing these ballcaps with insignia, I will go up to them and shake their hand and tell them thank you. Try it and you will see what I mean.” He said its one of the most humbling moments that a person can do.

The Dyers are glad they have a strong faith in the Lord. Especially during a long year when Charles was in Iraq.

“I think God kept him safe. I believe in prayer, but God still has thy will to be done, nonetheless. Charlie, he couldn’t talk much about what he was doing over there. I know he was up Euphrates River, north of Baghdad. I asked him what he was doing and he said, ‘running with Navy SEALS, a demo crew,” that was enough. I didn’t need to know any more.

But, it doesn’t surprise Dyer.

“Charlie loves weaponry. He started shooting a bb gun when he was 2-years-old and he could shoot a beer can with that bb gun.

For Jan, she thinks of it in more humanitarian terms.

“He wanted to do something that wanted to mean something. Plus he’s a protector, they’re all protectors,” she said. Has she noticed a difference in her son since his time in Iraq?

“It matures them real fast. They either go one way or the other. He matured, he’s older, quieter.” And ignoring the harsh reality of it won’t make the war go away, the Dyers shared.

“One of the guys in his unit was killed while he was there. They go through some bad times they don’t want to talk about.”



That doesn’t surprise her. It’s only now after her father’s death has she discovered just how much he, too, never shared. Within the month after his death, Jan managed to fill an expandable scrapbook album to about five or six inches with certificates, photos and achievements her father earned during his lifetime.



A hero’s life, an athlete’s accomplishments

Jan’s father, Richard Smith, was born in Corvallis, Oregon June 1, 1921. When he was 3, he got polio, but his mother wouldn’t accept that he might never walk. Her determination involved working with him constantly, first in the bathtub, then a pool and anywhere there was water that would serve as therapy. A year later he was walking. That determination must have been what molded Smith into, as what Jan describes, a perfectionist, but also an extraordinary athlete and soldier.

The highlights of her father, Charles grandfather, include competing in the 1948 World Olympics representing the Army, in London where he placed fourth in javelin; serving as the sports director at every army base he was stationed; playing volleyball and even serving as the guide editor for the United States Volleyball Association from 1984-1993 and developing a play rulings book. According to some of the information in the Smith records, he was certified as a National Referee in 1984 and worked every national tournament until he retired in 2000.

“He was real active in all kinds of sports and he had quite a career,” John Dyer said. Smith entered the military at the onset of World War II. He also served in Korea and Vietnam. In WWII, from 1945-46, Smith was with the 1st Allied Airborne Army in Europe.

“After he retired from the Army, he went to work for the United States Capitol Police there at the nation’s capital. He worked that career for 16 years. Being a police officer wasn’t new for Smith as he also was with the Portland, Ore., police department for three years following World War II. He went back into the Army after that.

He earned 23 medals in his military career, including the Bronze Star medal. Dyer said that when they asked him what he did to get the Bronze Star, Smith’s response was simple. “I flew over Europe in World War II.”

Smith was a glider pilot in WWII, Jan said. It wasn’t so much cheating death as it was that streak of perfectionism and making his life count. Among Smith’s accomplishments is also the fact that he helped build the Oakland Army Terminal’s bowling alley in the early 1960s. In the album a photograph shows Smith with two other men, all three holding bowling balls with lane action behind them, dated 1964. During that time, he was the post sports director at OAT and he organized numerous athletic events for the East Bay and Central California area.

But aside from his athletic prowess, Smith also maintained a sense of humor through the war battles.

One letter, written to his uncle reveals his lighter side during a difficult time. The five page letter was dated May 23, 1966, and written from Nha Trang, Vietnam. Dyer has the original copy plus the military airmarked envelope it traveled in. Smith was responding to his invitation to the Coon family reunion which he said, he could not attend. “This year, I am proudly serving my country in Vietnam.”

On page 3, Smith writes “I’m without a doubt one of the most live cowards you have ever seen. I jump into the old “Beaver” and push on 32” of manifold pressure and 3200 RPM and just leave it there until I reach at least 7,000 feet before easing off to a 28” and 1850 RPM cruise setting.

My first night flight was was such a glorious occasion that Charley fired tracers near the plane. The crew chief was quite disturbed to find the pilot’s seat with big brown stains on it. I wasn’t really scared. It was more like petrified.”

The Dyers said that part of the letter always draws a laugh from those who read it.

“He coordinated the air ground strike in Vietnam, plus he did some combat flying. I have his entire history written down. There was a lot of it.” But some of that history is also lost. After Smith’s death, his wife, Azam Eskandar, who he married 24 years ago, was cleaning out a file cabinet. As she was trying to get a drawer to close, she banged on it, said Jan. Some papers that Smith hid up under the bottom of that drawer tumbled out. Smith had gotten Alzheimer's in the six months before he died. And in those papers was the Bronze Star Certificate. It may be the only record of that medal of valor awarded to Smith. Many WWII Bronze Star recipients were not listed in a database.

For Jan, it’s a huge honor. She did not even know her father until she was 9 years old, as she was adopted by her grandparents. When her grandfather died, that’s when she found out about Smith. She explains that her father and mother had divorced, married other people, and years later, came back together. Eventually though, his final wife was Eskandar, who he met in Canada through a sporting event.



Why it’s important

For the Dyers, many things have shaped their lives and will most definitely impact those of their three children, four grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.

They both say whenever they are out in public, they keep an eye out for an old veteran wearing a ballcap or some insignia so they can say thank you.

Dyer, who claims to only be semi-retired, finds that no matter how one thinks they control their life, there is a bigger plan.

“You know, the last thing I ever wanted to be, was a minister. I was raised a Christian in my mom and dad’s home,” he said. “I pray that God puts somebody in my way that I can help in some way. Some days, I think, why’d you put that one in my way.”

Yet, he never feels that way when it comes to veterans.

“You know, we old boys get so self-centered and self-seeking,” he said. Obstacles tend to help straighten that out. He relates those obstacles much like the turmoil of the world. “You know, we really must appreciate what we have. We could live in a country where we aren’t so free.”

His wife agrees. “I really do appreciate my freedom,” Jan said.

(Writer’s note: Charles, just before he went on his tour of duty, told this writer that is why he re-enlisted. “For our freedom.”)