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Among the three of them, there's an amazing record of service to country. Brothers Martin, Earl and Dave Tressler - three farm boys from Sugar Valley - have more than 60 years of combined military service ranging from the post-World War II era up to the Vietnam War and beyond.

Sons of the late Oscar Franklin and Fairy Grenninger, both Martin and David made their careers in the Air Force, while Earl spent his military service with the Army.

Now age 80, Martin is the oldest of the three and entered the service first in January 1946.

"I was working for Woolrich Woolen Mills and finally convinced my mother to sign off for me," said Martin, who was only 17 years old at the time and too young to enter the military without parental consent.

Martin began his service in the Army Air Corps in the Signal Corps Division, which was the weather service arm of the military. He then transferred to the Air Force, but stayed in the Air Weather Service.

"When I started, there was no Air Force," explains Martin. "I wanted to be a bombardier, so I joined what was then known as the Army Air Corps. When the military changed over in 1948 and established the United States Air Force, they transferred all of us who were in the Signal Corps over to the Air Force.

"My first three years were spent as a weather observer," continued Martin. "I would go out and collect data, check the sky, temperatures, humidity, wind speed and plot weather for the forecasters. I travelled all over Kansas, Florida, Texas, Illinois and the Aleutian Islands."

He also spent a number of years as a weather equipment technician, which took him to not only points in the U.S., but to locales such as Iceland, Labrador, Baffin Island and Germany.

"We would travel to all of these Air Force bases to repair equipment such as storm detection radar, big radio receivers, equipment that would measure the height of the clouds, visibility, air pressure - all electronic equipment," Martin said. "Most of my training for this was at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois, with some in Boca Raton, Florida and L.G. Hanson Air Force Base in Massachusetts. In all, I went to 12 technical schools and there was also in-house training.

"I remember once flying above the Arctic Circle," Martin said. "We were trying to repair an automatic weather station there. There were no trees and it was all white. You couldn't use a radio or compass - nothing worked because you were too close to the North Pole. You had to rely on the pilot. The temperature was about 65 degrees below zero. It was quite a trip."

Martin's final three years in the Air Force were spent as an inspector in the weather equipment maintenance inspection section. His inspection territory stretched from Texas to North Dakota and included 26 bases.

"I did a lot of flying," Martin recalled with a laugh. "We visited each of the 26 air bases, checking all of the weather equipment and making sure maintenance was being done on it."

While he was stationed at Scott Air Force Base near St. Louis, Ill., Martin met his wife Carol.

"She was from Iowa and was in nursing school in St. Louis at the time," Martin said. "We always told people we lived 1,200 miles apart and met half-way in-between. And we moved around so much, our children were born in four states and two countries!"

In fact, Martin's son Thomas (who was born in Texas) also made a career of the Air Force, retiring after 24 years of service. Another son, Steve (born while Martin and Carol lived in Nebraska), spent seven years in the Navy. Son Wade was born in Germany and daughters Wanda and Anita were born in Texas and Louisiana, respectively.

After a career of more than 20 years, Martin was discharged in April 1966 as a master sergeant.

"I had two choices at the time," he recalled. "I could retire, or I could go to Vietnam. I retired. But then I was automatically put into the Air Force Reserves for eight years after I retired."

Martin and his family returned to Carol's family farm in Iowa and for the next 20 years of his life, Martin farmed crops and raised livestock.

"I was in to hogs and sheep. Then I retired (again) and we moved back to Pennsylvania," said Martin, who moved back to the Booneville area and still hasn't slowed down much. After coming home, he drove for a group of Amish carpenters for a few years. He's a volunteer at the Sugar Valley Lions Food Bank, a Gideon member and has been an elder in his church for 18 years. In addition to his children, Martin has five grandchildren. He and Carol were married for 55 years before she passed away in 2006.

Earl is nearly two years younger than Martin, and Dave is two years younger than Earl, yet the two enlisted in the military just about a month apart Dave in September 1951 and Earl in October of that year.

Of the three, Earl was the short-timer in terms of military service.

"I went to Indiantown Gap and then to Fort Meade, Maryland, for induction," Earl recalled of his initial Army days. "Then I was sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for Infantry Training and to Fort Polk in Louisiana for tank training. I was a tank operator, or tin can operator as we used to be called."

Earl served with the 137th Tank Battalion. He was also in the Sixth Armored Division, then the 145 Tank Company. He also trained at Fort Irvin, Calif., Army Base, where he learned to use flamethrowers, externally-mounted devices that could shoot a burst of flame from the tank.

But Earl says most of his time was spent at Fort Polk. He was discharged from there in two short years, and was out of the Army in 1953.

"I was a short-termer," says Earl with a laugh. "I thought about staying in. They had me down for sergeant and I said, 'I know what that isit's a re-up.' So I was discharged as a corporal."

Upon his return home, Earl says he drew unemployment for a bit, then worked at a tannery in Williamsport and at Piper Aircraft in Lock Haven before landing a job at what was then known as General Armature. He had a 32-year career at the Beech Creek plant that had many names and owners, the last of which was Champion Parts.

"When I retired, I retired," claimed Earl, who now lives in Beech Creek with his companion of many years, Dottie Rickert. He has two sons - Ronald, who lives in Lamar and Barry in Avis, as well as six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, and says he enjoys nothing more than taking his dog to the Bald Eagle Beagle Club.

Although he's the youngest of the Tressler boys, Dave has the longest military career in the family. He served four years of active duty, then served in the Air Force Reserves, as well as the National Guard and the Retired National Guard. Overall, his service time spanned more than 40 years.

Dave joined the Air Force in 1951 and went through basic training at Sampson Air Force Base in New York. From there, he was stationed at Chanute Air Base in Illinois, where he met up with brother Martin. It would be the first of many times their paths would cross during their Air Force careers.

"From Chanute, I went to Amarillo Air Force Base in Texas," Dave recalled. "The day I graduated from the air frame repairman's course was the day Pop died. I was called to the Red Cross at 2 a.m., and came home."

All three brothers returned home for their father's funeral in 1952 and it was then that they posed together in uniform for the photograph used for the Hometown Heroes banner that today flies on the Lock Haven levee Riverwalk. Dave is pictured on the left in the photo, with Earl in the middle and Martin to the right...youngest to oldest.

Dave was at an Air Base in England for a brief time, but spent most of his four years of active duty at Biggs Air Force Base near El Paso, Texas. He served in two different units.

"I worked in the sheet metal shop at the base," Dave said. "We would repair the holes in all of the aircraft."

In September 1955, he was discharged from the Air Force as an airman first class. After working a few months at an apple orchard in Loganton, Dave began a 26-year career with Piper Aircraft in Lock Haven. He also signed up with the Air Force Reserves.

In 1959, Dave joined the National Guard. He served 18 years with them before joining the Retired National Guard.

"You can join the Retired National Guard once you have 20 years and one day of active service," said Dave, who adds being a member of the Retired Guard made him eligible for pay increases. "I retired from the Retired Guard in 1997. In all, my service amounted to 40 years, three months and 26 days."

After Piper closed in the 80's, Dave worked for Greene Township. He went back to work for about 16 months when Taylorcraft operated the Piper complex, but got laid off and the facility never went back into operation.

From there, Dave went to work as part of a maintenance crew for Bob Raible until he retired.

He and his wife Betty still live in Loganton. They have four children sons Michael, in Loganton, Douglas (who also served in the National Guard) in Lamar, and Dennis in Tylersville, and daughter Sharon, also in Loganton.

The couple also has seven grandsons and five great-grandchildren. Dave was a member of the Sugar Valley Lion's Club and he belonged to the retired NCO (noncommissioned officers club) club in Lock Haven, which included NCO's from the National Guard.

All three brothers are very proud of their military service and of their status as veterans. In fact, Martin and Dave were among a few local veterans to wear their original uniforms last May when the Downtown Lock Haven program unveiled the Hometown Heroes banners.

"I enjoyed every bit of it," Martin said of his time in the Air Force. "I was in the air a lot and experienced a lot of difficult situations. There were many times when we lost engines in bad weather - it was pretty normal for us.

"There was also a trip where Dave and I were traveling together and we ran into flight problems," he continued. "We had some equipment go out at the base in El Paso, so I was headed there to work on it and Dave was headed back to that base.

"We were flying out across west Texas and hit a lot of turbulence. The plane went straight down and stopped so hard that a seat a friend of ours was sleeping on collapsed.

He woke up with a jolt, he said he thought the plane was going down and had been ready to pull the 'D-ring', which would have filled the plane with his parachute!"

Just one more tale of derring-do from a family that gave so much for their country.