Happy Veterans Day (1 Viewer)

[Joe Bryant]

This isn't political but thought it made sense here. 

From today's email.

Hi Folks,

Good day to you. We've got the News and Notes you need but first I hope you'll indulge me a moment as we celebrate Veteran's Day. As I always do on this day, I'm including the essay titled "What is A Vet".

Please take a moment and thank a Veteran today. These Men and Women rock.

Your Friends At Footballguys

What is a Veteran?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can't tell a vet just by looking.

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

They are the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".

"It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag."

Father Denis Edward O'Brien/USMC

 

[Gr00vus]

Thanks grandpa! Thanks "uncle" Pete!

 

[Da Guru]

My uncle was killed in Vietnam at 19 years of age.  RIP Uncle Larry

 

[Godsbrother]

My grandfather fought in WWI and my father in WWII.  I was born in 1959 so was too young for Vietnam but I still feel a little guilty that I did not serve.

Thanks to all the veterans, they are true heroes.

 

[Shula-holic]

My grandfather fought in WWI and my father in WWII.  I was born in 1959 so was too young for Vietnam but I still feel a little guilty that I did not serve.

Thanks to all the veterans, they are true heroes.

GB your dad and granddad.  Same here with my dad and granddad.  My father is still kicking at 98, WWII survived the Philippines and Manila.  Not many of those guys left today, days like today make me think about all those guys went through so we can bicker here as we do.

 

[Joe Bryant]

GB your dad and granddad.  Same here with my dad and granddad.  My father is still kicking at 98, WWII survived the Philippines and Manila.  Not many of those guys left today, days like today make me think about all those guys went through so we can bicker here as we do.

It's sobering isn't it? I've done the Bataan Memorial Death March a few times in White Sands. Your dad likely knows all about that. 

It's a 26.2 mile thing through the missile range. Kind of uncomfortable as it's hot and dusty and whatever. 

About mile 22, I"m starting to feel sorry for myself and my feet hurt in my $150 trail running shoes and my smart wool socks and i look up and there was a couple of guys your dad's age who were veterans of the real death march. 85 miles with crappy or no boots. Sick from malaria and starving to death. They shot the guys who fell down and couldn't get up. And what they got at the end of the march was a Japanese concentration camp. 

I've never felt so soft in my life. 

Thank you Veterans. 

 

[timschochet]

To everyone here who has served in uniform, thank you. 

 

[timschochet]

It's sobering isn't it? I've done the Bataan Memorial Death March a few times in White Sands. Your dad likely knows all about that. 

It's a 26.2 mile thing through the missile range. Kind of uncomfortable as it's hot and dusty and whatever. 

About mile 22, I"m starting to feel sorry for myself and my feet hurt in my $150 trail running shoes and my smart wool socks and i look up and there was a couple of guys your dad's age who were veterans of the real death march. 85 miles with crappy or no boots. Sick from malaria and starving to death. They shot the guys who fell down and couldn't get up. And what they got at the end of the march was a Japanese concentration camp. 

I've never felt so soft in my life. 

Thank you Veterans. 

My great uncle was in the Bataan Death March. 
 

So ironic. He fled Germany (the rest of his family died in the Holocaust except for my grandparents who were on the run for 3 years), got to America, enlisted in the army and got sent to Manila, from there to Corregidor and Bataan. After the war he ran a bookshop in San Francisco. 

 

[Joe Bryant]

My great uncle was in the Bataan Death March. 
 

So ironic. He fled Germany (the rest of his family died in the Holocaust except for my grandparents who were on the run for 3 years), got to America, enlisted in the army and got sent to Manila, from there to Corregidor and Bataan. After the war he ran a bookshop in San Francisco. 

Respect. You've probably read it but My Hitch In Hell is a great/awful book about this. 

 

[Shula-holic]

My great uncle was in the Bataan Death March. 
 

So ironic. He fled Germany (the rest of his family died in the Holocaust except for my grandparents who were on the run for 3 years), got to America, enlisted in the army and got sent to Manila, from there to Corregidor and Bataan. After the war he ran a bookshop in San Francisco. 

Those guys have some awful stories.  My dad was part of the liberation force.  I was always a history nut and tried to ask him about things about the war because I was interested.  As I got old enough to realize he just gave one or two word answers, which was unusual for him in normal conversation, I realized he didn't want to think about or remember those things.  I found out later from my mom that his mother told her that when he got home from the war he stayed locked in his room for a month or so at her house.  When he finally came out he decided to go get a GED and go to school on the GI Bill.  So many of those guys obviously had forms of PTSD or whatever he proper term would be.  The few things he told me about he did see are just horrifying to think of.  Most involved the villagers of the Philippines they'd find from where the Japanese pulled out.  Slain mothers and children, pregnant women killed with bayonets, that type of thing.

 

[AAABatteries]

I never served but my son is named after one of the greatest men I knew - DeWitt Rowe, who was a Pearl Harbor survivor and long-time DI at Parris Island.

Love you Uncle D!

 

[Godsbrother]

GB your dad and granddad.  Same here with my dad and granddad.  My father is still kicking at 98, WWII survived the Philippines and Manila.  Not many of those guys left today, days like today make me think about all those guys went through so we can bicker here as we do.

That's awesome!  My Dad passed away two years ago at 93.    

 

[timschochet]

Respect. You've probably read it but My Hitch In Hell is a great/awful book about this. 

I haven’t. Thank you, I’ll check it out. 

 

[Joe Bryant]

Those guys have some awful stories.  My dad was part of the liberation force.  I was always a history nut and tried to ask him about things about the war because I was interested.  As I got old enough to realize he just gave one or two word answers, which was unusual for him in normal conversation, I realized he didn't want to think about or remember those things.  I found out later from my mom that his mother told her that when he got home from the war he stayed locked in his room for a month or so at her house.  When he finally came out he decided to go get a GED and go to school on the GI Bill.  So many of those guys obviously had forms of PTSD or whatever he proper term would be.  The few things he told me about he did see are just horrifying to think of.  Most involved the villagers of the Philippines they'd find from where the Japanese pulled out.  Slain mothers and children, pregnant women killed with bayonets, that type of thing.

That totally makes sense he wouldn't want to talk about it. The Hitch In Hell book goes into a good bi of that. The cruelty is off the charts. 

 

[Shula-holic]

That totally makes sense he wouldn't want to talk about it. The Hitch In Hell book goes into a good bi of that. The cruelty is off the charts. 

I need to check that out for sure.