Veteran’s Corner
Jason Hicks | Commander United Patriotic bodies Fargo Memorial Honor Guard
It appears that summer 2025 is coming to an end as fresh picked sweet corn is being sold by the roadside.
And also small town parades are coming to a close for the season. I am very thankful that we (the Fargo Memorial Honor Guard) have a small pool of dedicated members who are willing and able to march in these events. We cover the towns that no longer have a Veterans organization that can still march. It is quite an honor to carry our Nations colors leading off every parade and as Veterans we take great pride in doing so. That being said, it is sometimes frustrating to have to remind people to stand when the flag goes by. However the most frustrating thing I saw the lack of etiquette by the Clay County Sheriffs office, normally when in uniform you stand at attention with your hand over your heart, and if you are a Veteran a hand salute is rendered. I did not see this happen even once. I think its probably a lack training and knowledge, nothing on purpose. But disappointing none the less. You take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution so basic acknowledgement of the symbol of our nation should be conducted.
On a more positive note, a couple weeks ago one of our members of the Fargo Memorial Honor Guard celebrated a very important anniversary. 56 years to the day of returning from Vietnam. We are very fortunate to have Darvin Huff in our ranks. Welcome home brother.
As mentioned last time there are some quite funny memories of life in the Army, this weeks topic-POCKETS. You would think senior leadership would have more pressing things to worry about. But if you were caught with your hands in your pockets, it was almost a capitol offense. Unless placing or immediately retrieving something small (say car keys) hands in pockets was forbidden, Also storage in said pockets was also limited. On the old Battle dress uniform (BDUs) there was four pockets on the shirt and six pockets on the pants. You could carry a small notebook in the upper left-hand pocket of the shirt but not a pen (that had to go under the flap in the front). A back pocket on the pants could hold a wallet. A front pocket could maybe hold keys and some change. The side pocket aka cargo pockets were off limits. If caught making such an egregious use of provided pockets would result in a verbal dress down and assuming the front leaning rest position (pushups) depending on the mood of the offended party.