I got the sad news this morning about the passing of my old friend and neighbor Mr. Dudley Jones up in Nashville where I grew up. He was a great man one of the best. He was the father of three of my earliest childhood friends in Nashville. He and his bride Thelma were a fixture in our South Nashville neighborhood around Glencliff High and Glencliff Elementary schools. Always involved in helping the neighborhood kids and making our neighborhood a little bit better, Not for financial gain, just because it was the right thing to do.

The Dairy King a local eatery in South Nashville was Jones' family establishment for over forty years, the best meat and three, ice cream treats and fried chocolate pies in the world. Nancy still insists that if I am near the Dairy King a pie had better follow me home. 

Dudley was a member of a unique band of brothers, The Chosin Few. As a kid in Nashville he found himself with many of his buddies in the local Marine Reserve Company suddenly trust from peace time Nashville Nashville to the horrors of the War in Korea in 1950. They would land at Inchon and advance all the way to the Chosin Reservoir and that's where they marched into the gates of hell. The Chinese had secretly crossed the Yalu River in November and secretly entered the war. MacArthur would deny the Chinese invasion until the proof was thrust upon him 250,000 times. The Marines and remnants of part of the U.S Army Second Infantry Division were surrounded. Dudley was there. Temperatures often hit 45 below zero. 

The Americans, mostly Marines, with a few British Marines along with them fought their way out of the red encirclement several times, finally making it to the sea and safety, even making sure their wounded and many of their dead were not left behind. Many consider the Chosin Reservoir or the Frozen Chosin the greatest moment in the history of Dudley's beloved United States Marine Corps. 

I remember as a child spending many hours at the Jones' house in front of the fire. Dudley always kept one going when it was cold outside. I remember one cold snow night a bunch of us spent the night in the basement and at one point Jeff and I going outside for wood. There was Dudley standing by the woodpile on that cold moonlit night looking up the hill towards Glencliff stadium, He was dead silent, as if in another place, just watching the horizon. I have often wondered for the many years since then was his stare transfixed to another time in his life. Had the snowy moonlit hillside behind the stadium gone from south Nashville to the frozen wastes of Korea. I think so, someday, if i am real good, i will ask Corporal Dudley Jones USMC. Semper Fi!

To Saint Peter he will proudly say

One more Marine reporting sir, I've severed my  time in Hell.