Operation Enduring Freedom

Being the spouse, parent, sibling or grandparent of a person in the military allows you the privilege of consistently boasting about that person no matter what role he or she may fill in our lives.

That being said, as an employee of The Flag Store, I have been given the opportunity to tell you how my son has become a part of The Flag Store lore.

My name is Denise Hyde and my oldest son Ron Trimner has been in the Navy since 1992 and is currently serving as a Chief Petty Officer stationed in Patuxent River, MD.   Fortunately throughout most of his career, he has been stationed reasonably close to us at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with a short stint in Lemoore, California.

His duties in the Navy have been as an Aviations Electronics Technician. When people look at me quizzically when I say that, I simply say he was responsible for the maintenance of  the electronic, computer, and weapon control systems on the F-14 Tomcat until they were retired and then moved on to the F-18 Super Hornet.  He is currently working as a maintenance manager at an avionics component repair facility.

Because of this job when he deploys, the duration is approximately six months and always onboard an aircraft carrier.  During his time in the Navy he has been on four carriers including the USS John F. Kennedy, the USS Enterprise, the USS Nimitz, and most currently he has made two deployments on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.  One of my favorite boasts is the fact that he was serving on the USS Enterprise which was policing the Arabian Sea and was sent immediately to Afghanistan when our country suffered the unfortunate disaster of September 11, 2001.

Because of Ron’s duties working on the F-18 Super Hornet he has a close relationship with the pilots of the aircraft, and during his six month deployment on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower from January to July of 2009 he was given the opportunity to have an American flag flown onboard one of the aircraft as it was flown on a tactical mission over Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.  His first thought was to contact me at work and ask if the owner of The Flag Store would like to have such a flag to display in her store.  She did and was gracious enough to not only send one for herself but also one for him to keep. 

We at The Flag Store now have this flag proudly displayed in a case along with a picture of the aircraft carrying the two flags with the actual flags prominently visible on the dashboard of the jet through the windscreen.  These two items and my son have now become a part of The Flag Store lore and have also been piled onto my boasting rights as a military parent.