Rodney James Harold Thiel, my dad

My father, Rodney James Harold Thiel, enlisted in the US Navy in 1942 at the age of 17. Many young men either signed their parents signatures or lied about their age just to serve in the military. Though some of the details of his time in the Navy are "sketchy", he apparently was in a plane that crashed near Wake Island, in the South Pacific. Rod had two broken bones in his neck and was the only one to survive the crash. He suffered from headaches until the day he died in 1979. The photo at left was given to me by Nana (Anne Emelia Nelson Thiel) and it's the only one that I have of my dad in uniform. In our stairway area, I have the flag that draped his coffin. I'm proud of the fact that he was willing to serve our country.