Tenant farmers with farm muskets, holding the hill long enough for Washington to withdraw at White Plains.
With the 14th Infantry Regiment, he fights the British along the Canadian border.
Married Jane Traxler the next day; later served with the 27th Ohio at New Madrid, Island No. 10, and Corinth.
Company G; the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and the final campaigns, serving until October 1865.
Civilian Pilot Training at Holy Cross; basic at Greensboro; instructor school at Randolph Field.
He rejoins as a Petty Officer First Class and serves with the Seabees, the Construction Battalions that built military infrastructure across the Pacific war zone.
Piper Cubs and fundamentals. The men he trained flew the combat missions.
McLaughlin Sr. flies gliders and co-pilots C-47s into France, including the movement into Orléans.
Tech. Sgt. Chuck Beckwith's 658th Amphibian Tractor Battalion lands under kamikaze attack.
Six more landings. At Cebu his LVT strikes a land mine; the injury lasts a lifetime.
Postwar Japan follows, where his son, Mac, spends his childhood.
McLaughlin Sr. flies with Armed Forces Far East; G.P. Sloan earns a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
With the 140th AAA Battalion of the 40th Division at Kumhwa, in the Iron Triangle, a Chinese Communist staging area for attacks into South Korea.
1st Lt. McLaughlin photographs the wreck from the air and assists the rescue.
Straight from high school to Washington, D.C., under J. Edgar Hoover.
Named Soldier of the Cycle, then Airborne School, a broken collarbone, OCS, and a commission in Field Artillery. His father and his father-in-law, Lt. Col. Charles Beckwith, were both at Fort Sill for the ceremony.
Sgt. Herrell Robbins, 5th Special Forces Group, keeps the camp’s mortar firing until the ammunition runs out, then carries wounded men to the rescue helicopters. Bronze Star for heroism, Purple Heart, Cross of Gallantry.
After ten months as an enlisted soldier; first assignment Battery D, 3rd Battalion, 7th Artillery, Bad Kissingen, Germany.
Father, eldest son, and middle son all serving in the same war. Mrs. Mac holds the line at home.
Norfolk and Newport News; two more years in the Reserve by choice.
Airfield commander McLaughlin Sr., wounded in the control tower, keeps directing the evacuation. Bronze Star with Valor and Purple Heart.
Just before Soviet forces seal it after the Prague Spring.
Then ten more years as a corporate chief pilot, with 15,000 hours by 1984.
Aviator with the 183rd Aviation Company and maintenance officer with the 10th Combat Aviation Battalion at Dong Ba Thin; Air Medal.
Toan-Thang operation; Vietnam Gallantry Cross for courage under enemy fire.
One of two launch keys. For the first time the family goes with him: Neu-Ulm first, then Schwäbisch Gmünd, the two Pershing posts in southern Germany, with base housing and American schools on the Cold War front line.
Pershing-era alerts and field deployments; Connee raises the children on her own.
The family returns from Germany in 1977 and Mac is stationed at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, home of the Army missile program, then Pershing test and training launches on the Florida coast, the same ground where Mac is laid to rest decades later at Cape Canaveral National Cemetery.
Then Fort Knox, Saudi Arabia with Vinnell, and the Command and General Staff Course.
A year of Cold War duty on the most heavily armed border on earth. After finishing the school year, Robert goes to stay with his mother and stepfather, Richard Franklin, and does not return to Fort Lee.
U.S. Army Logistics Center, TRADOC; more than 20 years of service, six of them overseas.
2,500+ flight hours; airborne over Desert Storm; later writes the fleet's EW curriculum.
Charleston to the Mediterranean, then Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
He turns down orders to the Pentagon, retires after twenty-three years, and goes to work for Battelle on national defense programs.
USAFA #11 of 967; later the youngest pilot selected for the 49th Test and Evaluation Squadron.
Operations officer for the relief effort, 1,000+ volunteers and recovery personnel.
Senior Offensive Duty Officer; air operations supporting the recovery of Marcus Luttrell.
One of two people responsible for the U.S. munitions storage area for the country.
Weapons caches, Soviet-era landmines, and training Afghan forces near the Pakistani border.
Seventeen-plus years; his procedures adopted at other airports.
Decades of Red Cross, hospital, and marine-rescue volunteering, recognized by the President's Volunteer Service Award.