Thursday, November 10, 2011

Follow Friday - Thirty-Seven Is the Smallest Non-Supersingular Prime


It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and two Follow Friday Features Bloggers each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:
  1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
  2. Follow the two Featured Bloggers of the week - Mother Lode and The Book Nympho.
  3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
  4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
  5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
  6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
  7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
  8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!
And now for the Follow Friday Question: In light of 11/11/11 and Veteran’s Day, tell us about your favorite soldier and how he or she is saving the world. Fictional or real life.

I'm going to answer this the way I think a lot of people will answer this by tagging my two late grandfathers as my favorite soldiers. Both were World War II veterans.

My maternal grandfather was Paul A. Wright. He had no middle name and chose the middle initial "A" when he enlisted so that he could be at the front of any list of Paul Wrights that was alphabetized. He had to get a special exemption to enlist because he was working in a "war critical" industry at the time (as a truck driver for an oil company). He served in North Africa, but then went to paratrooper school and joined the 101st Airborne just in time to be in the defense of Bastogne. After the war he came home, settled down, got a job working for the oil company and didn't talk about the war very much. He lived long enough to see me get married, but died before either of my kids were born.

My paternal grandfather was Joe Thomas Pound. He joined the Army Air Corps and flew multi-engine planes. My favorite story I heard from him was his first flying assignment. After finishing flight school, he was waiting for orders and saw a notice on the base bulletin board seeking pilots who wanted to volunteer for duty. He was bored and showed up for the meeting. They were looking for pilots to ferry planes to England. Because he had eight hours of experience in this type of plane, and his friend (and copilot) only had four, he was commander for the flight. Having grown up in a small town in Indiana, this flight was his first time out of the United States, and his first time seeing the ocean. The group started with one hundred planes. When they got to England after an all-night flight, they only had ninety-one. No one knows what happened to the other nine planes. They probably got lost somewhere over the North Atlantic and crashed into Greenland or the sea.

He eventually ended up flying supplies from Burma to China for most of the war, taking material to help supply the Chinese nationalist army "over the hump" (as the pilots called the Himalayas). After the war he used the G.I. Bill to go to college and launched my family on a completely different trajectory than it would have been otherwise. He worked as an accountant for a while, and then went back into the Air Force and stayed in the service for most of the rest of his life - he loved to fly. He was one of my favorite people in the world, and he died much too young when I was still in high school.

Go to previous Follow Friday: Thirty-Six Is Six Squared

Follow Friday     Home

25 comments:

  1. beautiful story! We buried my grandfather in the national cemetery in South Dakota last year and I miss him so much!

    Angie
    Angela's Anxious Life

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  2. I love your post :) Both Grandpa's sound phenomenal. Mine died long before I was born & I am glad you got to spend a good amount of time with both of yours. Have a great weekend.
    New follower
    Follow Friday@BOOKS & BEYOND

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  3. Love your post. Happy FF. Already a follower. My FF: http://readingandwritingurbanfantasy.blogspot.com/2011/11/follow-friday-2.html

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  4. Wonderful story, you have some brave family members :)

    Happy Veteran's Day!

    http://brunettelibrarian.blogspot.com

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  5. Very interesting post. I heard a lot of people had to make up names for the military. My late mother-in-law's boyfriend (if you can call a 70+ man that, that has lived with her for 14 years) name was EJ. That's it, E and J didn't stand for anything but he had to make names for the army.

    Thanks for FF. Stopping by to return it.

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  6. Hi, new follower. Those are lovely family stories. I'm glad that both of your grandfathers made it back from the war safe and sound.

    You can find my FF here.

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  7. A truly great story, thanks for sharing,

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  8. Hopping through. What fascinating stores about your grandpas!
    My Hop

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  9. Amazing story. My grandfather was probably my favorite person in my world as well. He was a vet as well - he'd been a motorcycle courier. I think I would have loved your grandpa!

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  10. Great post! I actually have my grandfather's journal from WWI it's amazing to read his daily thoughts. I'm your newest follower- thanks for stopping by my blog!

    GraceKrispy@MotherLode blog

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  11. Both of your grandfathers were amazing men. It's always so interesting to hear the stories of those who are from a different time with different experiences. I really enjoyed reading about their time in the service (made it feel truly like Veteran's Day).
    It's great that you have such proud memories of both of them.

    New follower. Stop by my post if you get a chance!
    Jenna @ Fans of Fiction

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  12. Happy follow Friday!!! My blog is hosting two giveaways currently (the one that just started today is for your choice of a Wendy Delsol book! Stork, Frost or The McCloud Home for Wayward Girls!) I would love it if you would stop by and enter! Thank you and TGIF/Happy Veteran's Day!!!

    Sincerely,
    Emma
    The Writers Voice:
    http://OurBooksOurVoice.Blogspot.com

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  13. @My anxious life: So sorry to hear about your grandfather. One of my grandfather's was cremated, and the other is buried near a little white church next to my grandmother. I miss them all.

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  14. @Books and Beyond: I am always thankful for the time I got with both of them. Even though it seemed so unfair for Grandpa Joe to die so young, I still got almost 16 years with him.

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  15. @Jennifer L. Bielman: Thank you for stopping by!

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  16. @The Brunette Librarian: Thank you. I like to think so, but I'm sure they would have said they were just doing the right thing like everyone else.

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  17. @Jennifer: That's interesting. I've never met anyone whose whole name was just two initials. Do you know what he went by before he joined the Army?

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  18. @Rea: I'm glad too - otherwise I wouldn't be here!

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  19. @Tribute Books Mama: Thank you, and you're welcome.

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  20. @Alison Can Read: I'm glad you liked them!

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  21. @Julia Rachel Barrett: I'll bet your grandfather had a lot of interesting stories to tell, that is, if he talked about the war. I have a couple stories from Grandpa Joe, but almost none from Grandpa Paul, because he just didn't talk about his experiences.

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  22. @GraceKrispy: We don't have a journal, but my grandmother kept all the letters my grandfather and her brother wrote to her when they were away during the war. One of these days maybe I'll be able to go through them and try to piece everything together into a book about them or something.

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  23. @Lindsay Cummings: I love your design and now I think I should pick up your books and read them!

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  24. @Jenna and Ashley: Thank you very much. I am very proud of them. As I am sure most descendants of veterans are.

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  25. @Emma Michaels: Thank you for stopping by!

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