Today is Memorial Day.
It’s not MY day. Last Veteran’s Day (that’s MY day) we were asked to produce and display pictures of our service. I stuck one up there on my door of me and one of my fellow tank commanders when WE were the stopper in the Fulda Gap. Cold War. Tell that to my buddies who crewed one of our battalion’s M-88 recovery vehicles when it rolled over and caught fire at Hohenfels. Memorial. Not my day. Theirs.
It’s not my day. It belongs to the young soldier who used to sit on his bunk in the evening picking blue-grass on his twelve-string, who ended in a storm of flame and molten metal in Viet Nam. Fifty-odd thousand of those to remember.
World War Two: The war of my father. Think about it. It’s ancient history to most of America today. When I was a sprout, it was the stories that our fathers told. Or didn’t tell. The youngest surviving veterans of that war are in their eighties. Four hundred thousand, though, are halted, forever young. They left home. And didn’t return.
America’s had wars aplenty. We’ve been blessed that we’ve had a wall of protection provided by dads, brothers, sons, moms, sisters, daughters, people who rose int he morning like you and me, with dreams and hopes, who loved and were loved, but at some time had written a check to this nation and left the amount blank. And they paid.
And we should, it is right and fit that we should remember.
Thank you Cajun for saying it like I never could.
I wish I could write as well as you. Too often we forget why we have this 3 day weekend and what the cost has been to give us the opportunity.
Dale, that’s a 4.0 commentary if ever I have seen one!
As a life member of chapter 1028, Viet Nam Veterans of America, I salute you, and thank you for your service to America!
My father (USN 1968-1974) and I were talking last night and trying to remember when Memorial/ Decoration Day became conflated with Veterans’ Day. I thought it started about 5-6 years ago, but we couldn’t really recall.
Memories of our Dads !
I wrote this one a few years ago.
When I originally wrote it, I neglected to mention the young men who died during the Cold War. That has since been rectified.
Thank you for your service, Dale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j4c8RupRuQs#!