Cypress Cove Farm welcomes veterans
Red Bay fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders listened with rapt attention and asked some tough questions to the veterans who spoke on the last day of the fifth annual Cypress Cove Farm Veterans Day Appreciation.
“We’re trying to educate the kids about what a veteran is and how to show respect for them and for our country,” American Legion Post 120 Commander Frankie Smith said.
Hosted by Rep. Johnny Mack Morrow, the yearly Veteran Day activities at Cypress Cove bring hundreds of elementary children together to learn lessons in patriotism – from those who, many would agree, are the ultimate patriots.
Several veterans visited to share their own unique stories – some who served as long ago as World War II and some who recently retired from service.
Second class signal officer (now called petty officer) Aubrey Smith told his story, a journey that took him from California to Australia to Japan.
“I joined the Navy at 18 in 1943 and served in World War II for 19 months,” he said.
He explained that his first two months were spent on an island where his duties were fairly simple. Then, he and fellow sailors were moved to an island off the coast of Australia before finally ending up at Guadalcanal, which had already been secured and was the first major win of the war.
“When we moved on to New Georgia, that’s where I got a lot of my real battle experiences, you could say,” Aubrey Smith said.
They were under an air attack for three months while they were there, being bombed every night and day. He said they could always tell when it was a Japanese airplane because they had a specific sound, like a washing machine.
After a 30-day leave, Smith took up post as a signal man in Palm Beach, Calif., where he was in charge of sending signals via Morse code through flashing lights. Then he was sent to diving school and became a trained diver before being assigned to a ship that was given orders to go to Okinawa.
“The day we received our orders to leave,” Smith said, “was the day that the war was declared over.”
He wrote about all of this and more in his autobiography, “Smitty,” that he said he started at age 89 and pushed to have ready by his 90th birthday.
Frankie Smith said more than 700 students attended the program this year, which started in October and ended Nov. 7.
“I’ve never seen anything like this offered anywhere before,” said recently retired veteran Alford Johnson. “It’s a privilege to get to be a part of it.”
