On this most sacred of American Secular Holy Days of the American Memorial Day in paying tribute to those who served and are serving America with the ultimate sacrifice, I thought I would start these blessed days out with 4 family members.
I have been honored to come from a long line of American Heroes of whom I am deeply proud. My people founded nations, signed the Declaration of Independence and created America.
Far too often though, we always consider the Silver Stars, Combat Infantry Badges and Purple Hearts as the epitome of the Soldier, when as Gen. Patton always noted, the quartermaster, truck driver, KP and latrine digger were all just as important to the combat effort as those who were greasing their tank treads with their enemies guts.
In that, I am going to make this blog personal in introducing 4 of my family members who served in Vietnam. The Vietnam Veterans I have chosen in this as they were treated very badly by the Obama crowd and now are being savaged again as Democrats are lying about having served in that war just for political gain.
It is an amazing thing in that how these Veterans were spit on and driven to commit suicide, and now this same worthless Obamite ilk considers Nam Vets as the new chic and now they all instead of getting deferments or hiding out doped up on campus like Clinton, want to wear the Vietnam Badge of Courage.
I hope in a great way that this heals and vindicates the many Vietnam Veterans as the very worthless ass cowards who treated them horridly now are wanting to be just like them.
So let me introduce to you Gerald, Ron, Alvin and Ronald, four typical Vietnam Veterans of that 1960's era in their experience.
I actually loved Vietnam. There is nothing in this world as cool as an F-4 Phantom igniting the jungle with napalm, the gun sighted artillery laying down a pattern in incoming, the whop whop whop of a Hughie hitting an LZ and the the most comforting sound of all in a Ma Deuce in melody backed by the symphony of an Air Cav thump, thump, thumping spraying the bush for VC.
That war was politically wasted, but it was a heroes war with the best of fight and armament backing our most Noble of Heroes, the American Soldier.
Gerald was a Captain in the US Army. He flew in Vietnam which meant he was not a flyboy above the clouds, but was on the deck running close combat cover which gleaned the Warthog it's 50 years of serviced in the US military.
In 1969, he was shot down KIA.
I still remember seeing his name on the plaque in the back of our Church listed with the American Heroes who paid the ultimate price.
Ron was a Private in the Marines. He hit country early in the war when Johnson was ramping things up in 1965. Things were jungle tame in those years yet and his greatest story was about being on patrol and taking up position one night, a bunch of green American kids not knowing what the hell war was about.
The set up their perimeters, their wires and grenades, to which he thought a pig wandered in at night and blew itself up.
That was his adventure and enough for war. He is now a homeschooling grandparent in Missouri turning out another generation of American heroes.
Alvin was a Private in the Army. He couldn't see, but was drafted anyway. He spent his time much to his his Mother's concern but delight in Oklahoma.
I always remembered him saying, "Oklahoma is the damnedest place I ever was as we would be walking in mud and the dust would be blowing in our eyes".
Alvin in protecting his identity is still protecting Americans in service to America yet as the head of something which we all need.
Ronald was a Sgt. in the Army. He got that way in the 1960's, because he was in the Navy originally, and when discharged from an earlier war, with 7 children and wife, and things being short on funds, he decided to go back in and do his 20 years.
The Navy wouldn't take him on age, but the Army gladly signed him up again.
He found Vietnam to be "the damnedest war he ever fought". One day the Vietnamese would be good and the next they were trying to murder you.
He died at Pleiku, Vietnam in a metal hut, because all the American Mom's didn't like the idea that their boys were out in that jungle rain. The problem was VC mortars would punch a hole in that tin and then ricochet shrapnel around in the huts.
Ronald was the dichotomy of the superstition of the guy being killed on the day he was shipping out having put in his 20 years.
I will always remember him as a very young child looking so handsome with his moustache under glass in his coffin. He had a bandage on his head as the top was blown off, his white gloves were empty as his hands were gone and his torso was sunken as that was gone too.
His family was in the small chapel looking as sad as I have ever seen any people.
I had not thought of it until this morning as I picture him laying there in being so handsome, but he never had on Army Green, but was dressed in Navy blues, with the red chevrons as I recall.
Interesting in he died for the Army, but the Petty Officer's uniform is the one he was laid to rest in.
I find Vietnam romantic and her Heroes even more the epitome of legend. These Gentlemen of my family were just Americans, but they were all Heroes like so many families have Heroes who served, because the Hero is in the serving.
I realize as George H. W. Bush said with a shaking voice that he was only a survivor and that the Heroes are the Soldiers who died. I though for President Bush and President Bush, can name them all Heroes who served America and put on a uniform Loyal to America and being of good conduct receiving that little gold emblem when discharged.
I was already at several cemeteries this morning for Memorial Day, as I have Memorial Days and I prefer to be there in the cemeteries when the crowds are not there, putting the flag first on my relatives grave.
It is so beautiful to see the American flags in the wind, and noting how that wind tears at the ends of the flags, but in that there is the lesson that nothing is forever and those flags were earned because of deadly service in earning Combat.
I would ask that people remember the Veterans both living and gone from the ranks. If you have no one, just visit a cemetery and at least stop and pay tribute to the Soldiers laying there, because they went some place so that you could stand in that place in peace.
This is not a time of vacations, Paul McCartney rock concerts, political trips or fundraisers. This is a May 30th Memorial Day three days for Americans who as Patriots wore the most beautiful of uniforms for America.
My thanks is to God for leading them, holding them and taking them home when their time came, and my appreciation is for them, because they earned that medal of the heart from Americans who will never forget what they accomplished.
May God bless the Good in these United States. In His Name. Amen.
agtG
