Clyde T. Gribble

Gribble, Clyde Teddy In memorium. Clyde Gribble, my Dad, USN, USAF, Korea and Vietnam, passed away today. Clyde Gribble was born in Talmadge, OH on July 13, 1930. His family moved to Akron, OH right after that. We recently visited Akron and Dad found his old home, which was still standing. Dad's mother passed away when he was a teen. Dad's father couldn't take care for the kids (Dad and 7 brothers) by himself, so as a teenager, Dad and some of his brothers moved into a group home. When we went to Akron, I took Dad to see the home. We found it, and I asked Dad if he wanted to go inside. He said no, too many bad memories there. As a youngster, Dad worked part time on a family farm, which is where he learned to do a lot of things with his hands. Dad dropped out of high school and went to work at a boiler factory. They fired him when they found out how young he was. Dad then got a job working for the railroad, laying line out across the Dakotas and Montana. They didn't care how young their workers were. After that job, he hitchhiked from Idaho down to Nevada. From there, he hitchhiked to San Diego and joined the Navy. He told me of being on shore leave in Shanghai China. Dad and his sailor friends were horseback riding when they came upon some communist Chinese troops doing maneuvers (this was before the Communists took over China). He said he and his friends quickly turned around and headed back to the ship. (This was likely in Spring, 1949 when the USS Perkins, on which Dad was assigned, held port call at Tsingtao, China, north of Shanghai.) Dad continued to serve on the Perkins, a radar destroyer, during the Korean War, where she performed screening and plane guard duties for the carriers of Task Force 77 and carried out gunfire support and shore bombardment missions during 1951 and 1952. Dad achieved the rank of Petty Officer Third Class while in the Navy. After the war, he mustered out of the Navy and went back to Akron. There, he hooked up with his brother Lloyd (might have been Ernie) and they joined the Merchant Marines, sailing the Great Lakes. After that, Dad joined the USAF. He became a crew chief on B-47 Bombers. He was stationed at Barksdale AFB, LA, where he was sent on many deployments to England. From there he went to Dyess AFB, where he continued to work as a B-47 Crew Chief. He met my mother there and they were married. After me and my sister Jana were born, Dad was transferred to Idaho (Mountain Home AFB). Dad was next transferred to Anderson AFB, Guam. The family followed and we were there for three years. This was during the height of the Vietnam War, and Dad was routinely TDY to Vietnam. He was crew chief for the Strategic Air Command's 3rd Air Division Commander, Major General William Crumm, and escorted the general during his trips to Vietnam. General Crumm was later KIA in Vietnam during a mission over the North. While stationed on Guam, Dad took several trips. He took the whole family to Japan, and took Mom to Hong Kong (they didn't allow kids back then). He also had many stops at the various small islands in the area. He told me once of a trip to the Phillipines where he purchased some hand-made machetes from the locals. After Guam, Dad was transferred to Mountain Home AFB Montana, then on to Castle Air Force Base in California, where he achieved the rank of TSgt and retired from the USAF. We moved back to Abilene TX, and then to nearby Clyde TX. Dad worked a variety of jobs, including mail sorter at the Post Office, while going to school to learn welding. Dad also raised cattle, hogs, and sheep on our small parcel of land. He eventually began raising eggs for sale to the local stores and we had several thousand hens in the barn I helped him build. Dad then moved with Mom and Jana to an area near Houston (Brazoria) and went to work at the Dow Chemical Plant as a welder, eventually being promoted to foreman. During this period, dad also hand-built his own shrimping boat and spent several years shrimping in the Gulf Coast waters. Mom and Dad eventually moved to Albuquerque to live with Jana and her husband Philip Fachan. Always busy, Dad built a 1930 Ford coupe with Philip's help. Mom passed away, and soon after that Dad moved to Dayton to live with me and Nedra. This was right after Charlise (Cupcake), Dad's first granddaughter, was born. It was a lot of fun to see Dad's face light up when Charlise came by to see us. Dad was an avid golfer, and played all over the world as his Air Force career moved him around. He shot a hole-in-one at the golf course in Brazoria. In spite of his ailments, Dad still loved to be outside. At the end, he still wanted to go with me out to our small piece of land near Dayton and would hang out with me while I mowed or did other jobs around the place. Dad passed away at Hospice of Dayton on June 20, 2014, just shy of his 84th birthday. As he said just days before he passed, he was just a man, trying to make his way through life. He will be missed.