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Old 01-13-2015, 02:33 AM
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Stick Stick is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Fayetteville, Georgia
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Default RIP Uncle Lawrence

Add another to the American statistics; On Sunday, January 11, 2015 Master Sgt. Lawrence Steinke (retired) died in Belvidere, Illinois. Uncle Lawrence was my wife's Uncle and served over 30 years in the Army.
While I was based in Quin-Nhon, Sgt. Steinke was based in AnKhe with the 1st Cav. He and the Cav. were moved to Camp Evans west of Da Nang after he was "in country" a few of months and when I took my R&R I went to Camp Evans to spend the off-duty week with him.
Joanne and I spent a week with him last year at his house and every thing was good with him. He loved going somewhere with me and telling a friend that I was the only troop dumb enough to go forward on their R&R. I didn't go somewhere where they didn't shoot at you.
Lawrence was proud of what he was doing in country and taught me why we were in Vietnam.
Lawrence did not tie a yellow ribbon.
Joanne told me that Uncle Lawrence passed away on Sunday after I came home from Church which hit me pretty hard but I didn't want to go to his funeral. It's going to be a military funeral and those 21 guns do something to me. Just a week ago I needed to go to a Memorial Service at Church for a trooper that was actually involved in the D-Day invasion of France and those guns made me shiver during service.
Yesterday I was out doing honey-do's and when I came home Joanne asked me to "sit down" in her bedroom. That "sit down" request sounded just like 21 guns. Joanne told me that Uncle Lawrence shot himself in the head. I guess that the Veterans Administration had recommended that he go into an "assisted living" home there since he was incapable of going without his oxygen any more and couldn't breath without it. Lawrence was not about "depending" on someone else.
Sgt. Steinke was in two countries that were in the midst of war, Korea and the Democratic Republic of South Vietnam. The hallway at his house is covered citations and medals that awarded to him for his Army services. Three Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars and four Bronze Stars.
He found the need to pull the trigger while serving in those countries quite a few times.
He picked up many bloody remain of fellow troops while in the field and not many of those troops were in pain for very long.
MSgt. Steinke pulled the trigger on himself Sunday.
.
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