Howard W. "Bill" Cokonougher's bulletproof head

HOWARD WILLIAM "BILL" COKONOUGHER., my father, (on the right) with me, A1C Ralph W. Cokonougher, in 1970.   

I had just finished a tour of duty on one of the southern Japanese islands in the China Sea at the time, and was on my way to a new tour of duty in Brindisi, Italy.  My father told me that he was proud of me for following in his footsteps as a serviceman.  He himself had served on the US Army battle lines fighting Japan in World War II.  My father was a hard-headed Cokonougher, not only in his opinions and ways of dealing with life, but physically too.  He was hit in the head with shrapnel during World War II when a tank was blown up in front of him.  The shrapnel failed to penetrate his skull and he was back fighting on the front lines the very next day.  Doctors did not remove the shrapnel, so my father carried it in his head the rest of his life.  Later on, after the war and when I was a small child, he was again shot in the head, this time by a ricocheted bullet while he was hunting rabbits and pheasants with his sister and brother-in-law.  That bullet also failed to penetrate his skull.  He just pulled out the shot, wiped off the blood, and continued hunting.