On Flag Day, June 14, I remember how my Dad enjoyed flying the U.S. flag on a pole in front of his house. It was a flag that flew over the Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan in 2007. My brother, Ronald Thacker, was NATO Garrison Commander at that time and the flag was flown on a building they used as headquarters. They called that building Taliban’s Last Stand, because that’s the last building the Taliban occupied before the fall of Kandahar in 2001.

Full disclosure, Richard Thacker was my father and he served in the military, but I wouldn’t call him a military dad. If anything, the military delayed his becoming a dad.

My parents were married on Dec. 24, 1955. On Monday, Dec. 26, Dad’s draft notice was in the mail. He spent three years in the U.S. Army, including a trip to Germany where his new wife could not follow. She returned to her parents’ farm and wrote him a letter every day.

He was, however, proud of his military service. He achieved the rank of Sergeant and received training that would advance his career at the Santa Fe Railroad, where he worked in the shops as a carman. He worked for Santa Fe from 1951 to 1995, not counting his time in the Army.

While he was in Germany, Dad bought an Agra 35 mm camera and for years he was the person taking photos on trips and at family reunions that were usually on Father’s Day weekend. I can say that’s where my interest in photography began.

In later years, if Dad had a cap on his head it either said “Santa Fe” or “Navy Dad.” My brother Ron, now retired from the U.S. Navy, would be the real “military dad” in the family. His stepdaughters were 7 and 9 years old when Ron started dating their mother.

You can find my Dad’s name next to my brother’s name on the monument commemorating veterans from the Lecompton, Stull, Big Springs and Kanwaka Area in northeast Kansas. It was erected in Lecompton in 2011 celebrating 150 years of Kansas statehood. 

Last week, at the Big Bend Bash, I couldn’t help thinking how much my dad would have enjoyed the car show. When he was younger, he enjoyed rebuilding cars and his friends gave him the nickname, “Hot Rod.”

My father passed away on Jan. 4, 2023. My brother carried the flag that had flown over Afghanistan to the pole and raised it to half mast.