By Mandy Catoe
For The
Lancaster News
November 8, 2017
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| Adams, David, Janie, DJ |
“All I knew
is I wanted to be in the military,” Adams said. “I wanted to serve my country and
I wanted to travel and I knew I couldn’t do nothing there on that farm.“
After a
brief conversation with the navy recruiter standing in the field, his father, a
sharecropper, made his mark on the parental consent form and Adams began a
31-year career in the Navy.
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| Adams |
“I wasn’t
going to sit in Ruby, South Carolina and live there my whole life,” he said.
Adams was seated
on a couch beneath a large photo of the Viet Nam War Memorial.
Adams served two
tours in America’s least respected war. He adjusted his Naval Aviation hat and
held his walking stick gently in his hands. His most attentive listener was his
step-grandson, DJ, 20, a first year marine about to be deployed overseas on his
first mission.
Anchors Away
Adams said
when he left home, he felt like Li’l Abner, a cartoon about impoverished
hillbillies, especially when he saw young men with fancy suitcases. He
was clutching a brown paper sack that held one pair of levis, a t-shirt and a
shaving kit.
“We were
poor people. I mean a little bit poorer than poor,” Adams said. “I think mama
made $18 a week in a mill sewing and Daddy didn’t make anything unless he was
pulling a crop in.”
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| Adams |
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| Adams |
“I saw a
second class aviation man hold the injured man’s arteries,” he said. “He stuck his hands up where his legs had
been cut off and squeezed his arteries and every time his heart beat, the blood
squirted up on his chest.”
Adams said
he didn’t let the experience deter him. He later heard the experience unhinged
an older, combat-seasoned sailor which sent him to a mental asylum.
During his service, he earned the rank of senior chief,
patrolled the Viet Nam waterways as a Riverine in armed boats under continual
assault, and was the boatswain mate on three ships: Ticonderoga, Franklin D
Roosevelt and Independence.
The only thing Adams loved as much as the Navy was his
family so they traveled with him and lived on naval bases throughout the United
States, including three years in Hawaii.
He finished his last few years as a navy recruiter in
Georgia.
Second
Generation
His first-born Janie, now 53 and a Lancaster County
paramedic, followed in his footsteps.
“I grew up
Navy and we lived on Navy bases,” Janie said. “I cried like a baby when Daddy
got out. I wanted him to stay in because that is all I knew.”
Because of her father’s years of service, the Naval
Academy in Annapolis, Maryland offered her an education and her dream when she
was 18 years old. She turned it down to stay close to her boyfriend.
After 21 years of regret, she got another chance. After
the bombing of the World Trade Center September 11, 2001, the military extended
the age limit for enlistment.
In 2004, at the age of 39, Janie joined the Naval
Reserves and went to boot camp at Great Lakes, IL, the same place her father
went 50 years earlier.
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| David Demby |
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| Janie Adams Demby |
In 2006, Janie married David Demby bringing an army man
with a decade of service into the family. David is quiet, accomplished, and
confident. He also brought along two kids from a previous marriage, DJ and
Kayla, who were 10 and 12 at the time. One week after their wedding, David was
deployed to Iraq for a one-year tour. He was a combat medic.
In 2010, David began another fight. This time the enemy
was colon cancer. Janie was by his side the whole way. She never missed a
medical appointment and was pulling double shifts as a paramedic, attending to
the kids and still serving in Naval Reserves.
By 2012 she was
exhausted and left the Navy to continue caring for David and the family.
While fighting cancer, David completed his nursing
degree. He never missed a class.
He is now in his 24th year of service and
works as an intelligence officer in the Army Reserves.
David Demby, 42, made a full recovery and works as a
nurse practitioner at Healogics, the wound center of Springs Memorial Hospital.
Third Generation
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| DJ |
David’s son,
DJ was born at Fort Knox, Kentucky, the army base where his father was
stationed in the 90s.
By the time he graduated from high school in 2016, DJ
was a battalion commander in ROTC. He soon joined the marines. He has completed
his first year as a marine, survived the intense boot camp at Parris Island, and
completed the Crucible – the final test for a recruit before becoming a marine.
The 54-hour endurance course challenges their mental toughness, physical
strength and stamina. DJ made it and was presented the distinguished symbol of
the marines – the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor medal. His family lit a candle at
home and prayed throughout the ordeal.
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| DJ and David Demby |
DJ shared a little about his marine life so far.
“It feels great to know you have a lot of
support especially through boot camp,” DJ said. “I knew everyone back home was
rooting for me. It made it a lot easier.”
Adams looked at the young marine for a
minute, then said, “You will see combat and it won’t be good, but you will be
okay.”
All four veterans appreciate how modern
technology and cell phones give immediate information relieving the worry
soldiers and families endured in the past.
Adams said he paid $100 in the 50’s to
make one phone call home to check on his family and to assure them he was okay.
“It was worth every penny,” he said.
Adams said he knew DJ would be a military man the first
time he saw him as a young boy.
“I called him Sarge when he was 10 years old,” he said.
“He had the look.”
DJ sat mesmerized as Adams told stories about the
Marines at Chosin Reservoir in the late 1950s during the Korean War.
“If it was not for this boy and the
dadgum marines, we wouldn’t have made it then and we won’t make it,” Adams
said. “I tell you that right now. If you have the Navy and the Marines on
something, they will get it done.”
Within two weeks DJ will be deployed to his first
overseas mission to Okinawa.
“It smells like rotten eggs over there and sometimes
you won’t see the sun until mid-day when the fog lifts,” he told the young
marine.
After a pause, Adams looked directly at DJ and said
“You are leaving here for Okinawa and I came back here from Okinawa.”
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| Janie, Adams, David, DJ |
NFL
Controversy
This military family is boycotting the NFL until the
players stand during the national anthem and honor the flag.
Adams said it’s a privilege more than a duty to stand
for the flag. The entire family agrees.
“Sometimes you got to give sweat and blood for our
country. You just have to,” he said. “I thank the God Almighty that I served my
life under that flag and that I live my life under that flag. That isn’t just a
made up piece of cloth.”
“When I stand up, this old boy who turned the plow, I
get a wonderful feeling inside that I belong to something. This is my country
and I am getting to do this. I am proud to give thanks to it. I’m proud to
salute it.”
David nodded in complete agreement.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re black,
white, green or purple, every one of the caskets has the American flag draped
over it,” David said.
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| DJ and his dad, David, at the ROTC Ball |
Three Generations
Gary Adams,
senior chief petty officer, 31 years in the Navy.
David Demby, command sargent, Army
Reserve 21 years plus 3 years active duty.
Janie Demby, petty officer second
class, hospital corpsman, Navy Reserve for 8 years.
DJ Demby , lance corporal, one year in
the Marines.
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