Today’s post is not my normal post on this blog. It is for the Daily Prompt: Origins Story.
I usually submit for the Daily Prompt from my other blog, IF I ONLY HAD A TIME MACHINE
The Assignment: Why did you start your blog? Is that still why you blog, or has your site gone in a different direction than you’d planned?
I just started my other blog in late June of this year so I am very new to blogging. My other blog is fairly simple as I translated an interest in history into a daily blog about historical events on the date in history. On my “about” page, I received a comment from a fellow blogger who I had started following. It was the following comment and the online conversation that followed that resulted in me blogging to honor my father.
9 comments to About
gpcox says:
June 24, 2013 at 6:08 am (Edit)
I love looking for those little known facts and I know a lot of other people who enjoy reading them as well. Sounds like a great idea for a blog. Pleased to meet you.
Maryann Holloway says:
June 24, 2013 at 7:36 am (Edit)
Thanks. I like your posts too. My father served in WWII in the Navy on board the USS Hornet CV-12. We lost him when we were all pretty young so I never had the opportunity to hear his WWII stories. I pieced together his time on the Hornet through muster rolls from Ancestry.com so I know what battles he went through but it is not the same as first hand stories.
gpcox says:
June 24, 2013 at 7:37 am (Edit)
Do you plan to post this info? I think it deserves attention.
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At the time, I did have a start of something for such a blog. On Ancestry.com, I had built an entire database of the Muster Rolls from my father’s aircraft carrier during WWII and maybe the timeline and information about the aircraft carrier could be a basis for telling the story.
First I had to set up the blogs appearance. I wanted it to be different from my historical facts blog and I wanted it to visually say “Military and War”. I needed to choose a theme that was free of cost on WordPress.com. I am happy with the theme I chose and I have added widgets as I became more familiar.
Next came the “About” page and I think this really answers the question in today’s daily prompt assignment.
My father, John T. Ryan (Jack) was born in the early years after World War I and due to heart failure, he passed away before the Vietnam War was in the history books. In between he grew to manhood in Philadelphia, enlisted in the US Navy, went to war serving on the USS Hornet Aircraft Carrier (CV-12), met and married my mom in the late 1950s and fathered five children. Due to my age when he passed away, I never really knew my father and so I never had the opportunity to hear his stories of World War II. In this blog, I attempt to tell his World War II story through the history of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-12). It will lack the personal stories that I just don’t have. I welcome any comments to make it better.
John T. Ryan US Navy
To date, I have written about ten months of my father’s war experience and there are many more months to go. I am really learning a lot as I look up the various battles, look at maps of islands in the Pacific Ocean that I never heard of before and view images of people and places from more than 60 years ago. I don’t have a lot of followers yet and I am working on techniques with the categories and tags to get more followers but to me it is not the most important reason to blog. For me, this blog helps me to get to know a father I was never allowed the opportunity to know. That is how and why I began this blog. If you like to read about the war in the pacific, I encourage you to follow me as I tell my father’s story. If you want to start from the beginning, there is a link in the left side panel, under blogroll.
USS Hornet (CV-12)-A Father's Untold War Story 