With my writing career, I've heard and even worked on many a story about the folks who've served our country. In fact, this morning, I received a Christmas letter from a former student who's going through Army helicopter training school at Ft. Rucker in Alabama. She wanted to fly Blackhawks or Chinooks but is settling for the Kiowa. She says she's glad not to have drawn the Apache.

Cierra Peterson has already served a few years as a helicopter mechanic, but her dream has always been to fly. She tells me that she's made it through the Primary phase of training and is waiting to start the second half. I'm hoping to shake her hand sometime during her Christmas vacation and thank her for her service.

Well, today is Pearl Harbor Day, and I've already connected this morning with a family member who's of the Greatest Generation---the generation who remember this day 66 years ago as if it were yesterday and the same generation who stepped forward with indomitable spirit from all walks of life to do their part for the nation.

The reason I've connected with one family member (with help from his daughter Joan) is that another Greatest Generationer called me last night in her quest to find her cousin Bud's address. Bud Aspell tends to move a lot, and my Rosie the Riveter mother does not yet know this morning that Bud has most recently moved to Escanaba, Michigan, where he lives in the town's tallest building---on the 16th floor.

Leave it to a journalist and some luck, and my mother's request has been fulfilled. I just have to call her and tell her so. In her search last night, she called another Chicago cousin, Bill Short, hoping to learn where Bud was. Bill had the information, but he'd put it aside and was searching his house to find it before today.

After all, Bill Short and Bud Aspell visit by phone every Pearl Harbor day. Bill told Mother it was his turn to make the call this year because they always alternate on who calls whom. The two cousins, after having their lives "turned upside down" by the Dec. 7, 1941, attack, joined the Navy and both, having been reared in Chicago, took basic training together at Great Lakes Naval Training Station.

Bud told me this morning that he moved on to Memphis and received further training in ordinants. He was then chosen to teach Navy aviators all about the explosives they carried on their planes. He continued teaching in Memphis for most of the war but got discharged in Jacksonville, Florida, after a short stint of teaching there.

"I did fly over the ocean," Bud told me. "I flew in a PBY to get my four hours of flight time for higher wages." Bud doesn't remember where his cousin Bill went after their basic training, but I'm sure that maybe one of our mutual relatives back there in Chicago might see this posting and fill in the missing information.

My mother served her time as a civilian draftsman at Kellogg field in Battle Creek. Her work focused on bombers needing repair. After moving to the West in 1945, she lost track of Bud until about 15 years ago when I was doing some research and tracked him down through his son Richard, a Chicago-area dentist.

Bud, like my mother, had three boys and three girls. One of his sons is a surgeon, whose operating-room nurse was President Bill Clinton's mother. To say the Aspell family are Clinton fans is an understatement. Bud's daughter-in-law is even mentioned in the former President's book as one of Clinton's Arkansas elementary school classmates.

Mother's cousin Bud is a pretty low key guy. When I first talked to him on the phone after tracking him down, I told him I was Virginia Halter's daughter. He calmly said, "Oh, Virginia---she moved out there to Idaho in 1945 to have a horse farm. Howz she doing?"

Since then, Tibbs/Brown, Aspells and the Short family members have visited both out West, in Austin, Texas, and in Chicago. Mother has truly enjoyed maintaining the connection with the Chicago clan, and she's going to be glad to talk to Bud today.

That means three good folks, with distinct memories of this "day of infamy" so long ago can share their memories and do a little catching up on the wonderful lives they had afterward---thanks to their service to their country.

I'd love to be a bird, listening to what they have to say. Thank you, Greatest Generation!