Originally Posted by
Buckrub
I just sat for a while and watched the Salute to our Fallen Veterans on PBS, from Washington, DC, and I thought maybe I ought to come and apologize for my whining.
In 1998, I finally made it to Washington and visited the Vietnam War Memorial, otherwise known as The Wall. A picture of me at The Wall is ever in front of me at my desk. I've endured some very painful and emotional moments in my life, but I can't lie.........that one was the biggest. I spent 7 years in the US Army Reserve, doing mostly nothing. We taught Military Classes, but I did little. Shuffled some papers. Showed up once a month. Paid to have my uniform pressed so I could look good, doing a lot of nothing.
At The Wall, I broke down. Names of my buddies I was in Basic Training with were there. I found several. How they must have viewed me from their position on the back side of The Wall. How they must have envied me, being alive and in front of it and able to be free because of them. It was the hardest thing I ever did, and I've done some hard stuff.
Mostly, I just felt like I was on the wrong side of that Wall. I belonged on the back side, the side where the dead heroes were looking back at me. But I was scared, afraid, and found a way to avoid it all, while still serving some meaningless minor role. I had the best of all worlds. But they did not. They gave it all.
I have two good friends; one was a machine gunner on a Gun Ship running the Mekong Delta. The other, oddly, a machine gunner on a rescue Huey helicopter, pulling the wounded out of the rice paddies. One was injured, one was luckier. I eat lunch almost every Tuesday with both of them. They make me feel so humble. I'm so proud of both of them.
And so, on the weekend when we are to honor those of my buddies that never came home, and all of the Heroes that are all family to someone, I feel so very guilty to complain that my toys are broken! Toys break, that's what they do. I'm so very lucky to be alive, upright, in fair health, and able to use them. I'm so lucky that I can travel anywhere I want to go and use those toys any way I want. To whine when they break seems petty, mean, and selfish. I pray God to forgive me for such thoughts.
Thank you, guys. You guys that I spent Basic with and who never came home. Children of friends, who died in the Middle East. Heroes all. Many Vietnam Vets were spit on when they came home. I pray they get the honor that they deserve, and I pray we stop sending our best heroes to die on foreign soils of places who hate us. But I pray I could be half the man that they were, and are.........to give without thought of self.
Sorry to be long winded and maudlin. But this is a meaningful weekend to me in many ways. I was married 46 years ago, on the last Memorial Day that was not on a Monday (it was Saturday), and I can not spend that Day without having such conflicting emotions........of happiness to have the best woman on earth, and sadness for all my buddies who are long gone.
Thanks for listening. And thank a soldier when you see one. We get to argue minnows vs jigs, and who is the best mechanic, and which lake is best, and other wonderful things, because of them. And I didn't want to go to bed with y'all thinking I was whining over silly stuff, not on this weekend.
Thanks.
Bill
