A Defender of God and Country and an Exemplary Leader for Air Force Service Personnel to Follow. My brother Senior Master Sergeant/First Sergeant (SMSgt) Charles E. Weaver served 27 years in the United States Air Force. Called to God’s Heaven on 28 Sep 2024 at 78 years.

I think back to our shared childhood when we were just young boys, playing on the Farm, the Little Branch, the Big Branch chasing tadpoles and frogs, jumping out of the barn loft, feeding the big red chicken and bossy the cow, going fishing with Grandfather and the pure enjoyment of going swimming at the 20-foot hole.

I think back to 1954 and arriving in Tokyo Japan, only nine years after WWIIs ending to a beautiful, yet completely strange land, with a strange language, wonderful smells, vivid colorful dress for both women and men, Cherry Blossom Trees, and Bamboo Forest. Where American Baseball had become a national Japanese passion, and our introduction to Little League Baseball, Judo, and chopsticks.

I think back to Washington DC and Andrews Air Force Base (AFB), where Dad (SMSgt Roy E Weaver), was working for Air Force One while we were skipping school and going to the National Mall, to listen to Senatorial debates in the Capital, visiting the National Museum of History, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian, the White House, and the Lincoln Memorial and listening to the National Symphony free rehearsals on Thursday afternoons directed by Leonard Berstein and between the two of us having just enough lunch money to share a hamburger and still be able to pay for the bus fare back to Andrews AFB.

I think back to our shared experiences of our mother’s death at 36 years in1959, and then the 1962 Cuban Missile Crises and where we were that fateful day when our high school principal announced Kennedy’s (JFK) assassination. We left school and hurried home to prepare Dad’s uniforms for the Andrews Air Force Base Honor Guard Detail and we watched his burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

I remember you setting our high school varsity baseball team record for the number of stolen bases (22) not bad for a tall, 6” 2” skinny catcher who walked deceptively slow but was lighting fast, and your varsity basketball, varsity soccer, and varsity first chair French Horn, band awards setting the standards and the examples for us to follow. Wasn’t Mr. Jezisek a wonderful Instrumental Band Instructor, how lucky were we!

I think back to Boot Camp in Texas, we graduated in 1966, and you were walking away on detail, and I was shipping out. My last sighting of you was your backside and that famous “Weaver Walk.” We crossed paths somewhere over the middle of the Pacific Ocean you going to South Vietnam, as I was coming out. We enjoyed London, Piccadilly Circus in 1969 and Munich and Oktoberfest 1970.

I really appreciated you, Dad, Ann, and Christopher's efforts to attend my 1981 Officer Training School Graduation, your advice was spot on, and that first salute as a Second Lieutenant USAF Officer and your TDY’s to Headquarters Strategic Air Command (SAC) in 1984 and our visits at Little Rock AFB.

But most of all we appreciate your being “Christopher’s Godfather,” remembering his birthdays and Christmas and the guiding leadership and advice you provided to him and for our grandchildren Samuel and Emily.

We will “Love You Forever,”   

John, Ann, Christopher, Sarah, and the Grand Children

Major John N. Weaver, USAF, Retired
“Honor is expected, Courage is required.”
jnweaver@live.com