Courtesy Photo | Maj. Billy R. Green, pictured as a master sergeant, when he was one of the Marine...... read more read more
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MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, N.C. - M. Suzanne Mogren and her sister, Cindy A. Draper, toured Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, April 22, as part of a trip intended to commemorate their late father, a historic aviator, Maj. Billy R. Green.
As the government vehicle in which they toured snaked its way between the buildings of Grant's Landing, the two sisters who had returned to Cherry Point could not find their home. Armed with nothing but a photo from the 1960s of what used to be their house, Draper held it against the landscape that lay beyond the windshield of the silver sedan, hoping to find some semblance of commonality between modern Cherry Point and the version of the air station that existed when they were little girls, so many years ago.
"This feels like coming home," Draper said.
They remembered the beach was a stone throw away from their back door and walked behind a few houses to see if they could look down the shore and recognize the scenery.
While nothing looked familiar, they found themselves on the precipice of a great and breathtaking expanse of open water. Draper let out a suppressed, barely audible single word, "Wow."
Legendary fiction writer J. R. R. Tolkien once famously professed, "Not all those who wander are lost" in the poem "All that is gold does not glitter."
As the sisters wandered seemingly aimlessly on the roads that winded through the air stations' residential neighborhoods, they were anything but lost. They were reconnecting with their father, who passed away over five years ago, by returning to the place where half a century ago, he was a master sergeant returning from war, and replaced his black chevrons with a pair of glittering gold bars.
Mogren and Draper came to Cherry Point to pay homage to their father, a man who glittered like gold even before he earned a commission.
As a master sergeant in the Korean War, Green was one of the last enlisted pilots in the Marine Corps. The Fortuna, Calif. native, who enlisted in 1941 as a 17 year old radio operator, flew missions in the F4U Corsair and received orders directly from legendary Marine, Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, then a colonel, said Draper.
"Chesty was ordering bombing runs in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir," Draper said.
After returning from the war, Green was stationed in Cherry Point from July 1960-1962.
The sisters recognized little things about the air station – the bowling alley or a street where they vaguely remembered riding their bikes.
While they were ultimately unable to find their house, it was almost as if the sisters found their home, and connected with a man who they said spoke little of his time in the Corps until later in life, leaving his daughters wanting more.
The trip to Cherry Point was one of several places of relevance to their father and his military career the women visited on their journey, including his tombstone where he is interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.
Years after Green's 2004 passing, Mogren said she often sends care packages to troops stationed overseas and Draper said she loves sharing stories to people who have a connection with the military. Their father's life and military service seems to have had a great impact on the women, who have wandered military installations and collected clippings from newspapers photo albums to try to feel closer to a man who glittered like gold.
| Date Taken: | 04.22.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 06.04.2010 12:03 |
| Story ID: | 50864 |
| Location: | MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, NC, US |
| Web Views: | 228 |
| Downloads: | 103 |
This work, Sisters return to Cherry Point, honor late father, by Brian Adam Jones, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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