GOOD NEWS: Doppler Dave gives spotlight on family with massive history of military service

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - We have a feature in our morning show called salute to service where we honor families with a member in the military. That’s how I met Ray and Nancy earaches. They proudly shared about their family.

“This is our grandson, Evan Ray, and he is in El Paso. Now he is active duty. He’s the one that just came back from Korea,” said Nancy Rakes, Veteran From A Military Family.

As it turns out, Nancy is a veteran herself as me.

“So I fed the troops we had, we took care of the troops is basically not just the mess hall, but the laundry and everything else they needed,” said Nancy.

In fact, her husband Rhea is also a veteran and they actually met while in the service, when Nancy became ill and fell into his care.

“I came in on Monday morning, and my sergeants told me that had this gal that was this enlisted gal that was sick. And so I had to figure out what to do with her,” said Nancy Rakes, Veteran From A Military Family.

“He takes me up to the hospital, and they have no idea what’s wrong with me. So they put me on on quarantine, actually, and he had to take care of me. So ever since he’d been doing it ever since,” said Nancy.

While we are happy to honor Nancy and Ray, the story goes much broader than just themselves as a long lived pattern of service emerges from their family.

“This is my father, World War II. I got to thinking about Ray and I saw the movie. You know, I watched you every morning. And I saw them mentioned about the military. I thought ‘Whoa, Ray and I are military’, we often will send in and let her buddy see that I have read here at one time in my life. But then I got to think about our son or grandson or my brother’s my father in World War II, and I just added one more. One more, one more. And now I have 19 members and my family, not his side, my side of the family that were military,” said Nancy.

The family history spanned several generations and even includes a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.

“My father, World War II. And I have all the way down to my grandson, who just got back from Korea a couple of days ago,” said Nancy.

The couple takes great pride in being veterans themselves, but they’re also thoroughly dedicated to supporting all military members today.

I ride Patriot Guard. So we stand in honor of Veterans at funerals. And this year this we will escort the unclaimed veterans from the Texas Panhandle down to the National Cemetery in San Antonio. And so it’s a privilege to be able to honor those who have gone before to know that we are behind the vets that are out there today. And that’s our job,” said Rhea.

Well, I’d like to say thank you for your service, and your family service and all that you’ve done for the United States of America and our great country.

It takes veterans to do that and it’s just good news.

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