The Fred Hall Del Mar Show is just a couple days away with gates opening up at the Del Mar Fairgrounds at noon on Thursday. God bless our troops! ACTIVE MILITARY GET IN FREE every single day of the Fred Hall Show. As always, children 15 years old and younger get in free with a paid adult. Tickets are only $13 for adults and $12 for seniors 62 and above.

SportfishingReport.com founder Chad Woods got a touching gift at the Long Beach Show this year when SFR charter master John Thompson presented him with an American flag and commemorative plaque from Operation Enduring Freedom. The flag flew in an Air Force Air Rescue helicopter for a total of 163 missions over Afghanistan last year. By tradition, at the end of the tour John's son-in-law Staff Sergeant Cody Whittaker was given the flag because he recorded the most saves.

When he was on leave before that tour of duty, Chad sent Cody on a SFR charter with all expenses paid, right down to a hefty beer tab.

"The day after he got off the fishing trip, he got a call that he was going back to Afghanistan because the man who replaced him had been killed," said Thompson. "He wanted to give Chad the flag because that fishing trip was the only day in the last few years where the only thing he thought about was fishing and beer."

Every one of us at SportfishingReport.com want to honor and thank Cody and all our Armed Services troops for their sacrifice and hope they get to come home soon.

And we all need to remember that the sacrifice is not over once our men and women come home. "Cody said the hardest part is what you remember most is the people you weren't able to save," said Thompson.

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