Veteran's Day 2013

[randy]

To our brothers and sisters still out on the line, come home safely and if the worst is to happen, take an honor guard to with you. Know that we have your back.

To those that have been there, done that, Thank You. Having met many of the other vets on the board, I'm proud and humbled to be counted among your number.

And finally,

Absent Companions

[randy]

Almost forgot:

A Pittance of Time

[Rod]

To my fellow vets, living and dead, thank you for your sacrifices.

[PawPaw]

I've poured a drink and thought a lot about this, so here goes.

I'm rather embarrassed when someone thanks me for my service. Why? Because I had a ball, an absolute adventure the whole time. About 27 years all told, wearing whatever clothes they told me to wear, and I enjoyed every single minute of it. Long walks in the woods, automatic weapons. Belt fed weapons. TANKS! Four kinds of tanks. Some of it sucked, the rain, the mud, the interminable duty hours, but I'd do it all again, proudly, with a big shit-eating grin on my face.

I played the whole time. Practical jokes on COLONELS. I had a friggin' ball, the whole time. And they paid me for it. One night I was standing in a drizzling rain, about 0200, qualifying tank crews and the Sergeant Major brought me a canteen cup full of coffee. "What the hell are we doing out here, Major?" I grinned at him. "We're having fun, Sergeant Major."

He looked at me under his kevlar. "You're a sick sonofabitch, you know that?"

"Fuck you! You work for me."

"No, goddamit, we both work for the Colonel. If I worked for you, I'd turn in my paperwork."

I swear to God, I enjoyed every minute. AND THEY PAID ME FOR IT. When somebody thanks me for my service, I want to tell them how bad I screwed them, 'cause I'd have done it for free.

We won't speak of this any more.

[308Mike]

To our brothers and sisters still out on the line, come home safely and if the worst is to happen, take an honor guard to with you. Know that we have your back.

To those that have been there, done that, Thank You. Having met many of the other vets on the board, I'm proud and humbled to be counted among your number.

And finally,

Absent Companions

ABSOLUTELY!!

Semper Fi!

[Termite]

Well, I didn't enjoy EVERY minute of it. Getting blown up at Fort Polk and spending a week in the base hospital sucked.

But later Uncle Sam spent about a 1/4 million teaching me to fly helos, so it was worth the pain....

[The Wizard]

All gave some, Some have all
To all of my fello brothers in arms, Hooah!

[First Shirt]

I have to agree with PawPaw here. I feel like a fraud when someone thanks me for my service. I got to travel to places I'd only read about in school, got to do things that people would pay money to do, and met some of the finest people in the world and I feel truly humbled to be numbered among them.

To all my brothers-in-arms, thank you for making it such a great ride!

[Darrell]

All the same, gents, thank you for your service.

[First Shirt]

My late father-in-law is one of the ones that I think of when someone thanks me for my service. He flunked four physicals in 1942 trying to get into any service that would take him. At some point, someone realized that they were going to need railroad people when they got to Europe (from North Africa) and hired him on as a locomotive mechanic, since that was what he'd been doing for Union Pacific for six years before the war.

From Sicily to Berlin, he kept the trains running. All the way into Romania, not being released until 1947. But he didn't believe that he was "qualified" to join the VFW, because he was a civilian employee of the Army.

I want to be like him when (if) I grow up.