Posted by
Cyber Pastor on Sunday, May 27, 2007 12:49:05 AM
This one was too good not to post before going to bed! Thank you solo for sharing your heart with us. I still have at least 3 more to post. I love all the support and imput from the Good Guys!
Hello friends,
This is a particularly difficult time of year for me. Has been since my return from the brown rivers and the green jungles of Vietnam. My emotions are mixed and not easy to explain let alone talk about even now after all these years.
The overwhelming sadness mixed with a bit of guilt for having survived that stinky little war and happiness that I am still here is a guantlet. I look upon the faces of the young soldiers we have once again in harms way and wonder, was I ever that young?
Time has come full circle for me with one son already a veteran of the first war in Iraq and another perhaps heading that way for this one. I'll be honest and tell you that it scares me knowing my own flesh and blood will be over there, but I am not alone. I'm certain there are many of us with similar emotions.
We've been there, we know what war is and what it does to young people, now it's their time. I only wish I could do it for them but this worn out old body says "nope...you ain't going".
The memories of fallen comrades is a very personal and private thing with me as Snooper stated. I weep for them and I remember.
Oh I wasn't out there slogging through the mud and the jungle. I didn't walk point or set up LP's at O'dark-thirty and I didn't walk patrols through "Indian Country", but I was there, bringing the gear and the beer from the rear to our Marine buddies. We saw the war sometimes from a distance, sometimes up close and personal. We were large slow moving targets hauling tons of HE to feed the weapons of our comrades and we were targets of "Charlie" who was very ingenious at finding ways to kill us.
On the Wall in Washington, DC are 22 names of buddies that gave their all. Buddies who will be forever young. To this day I have yet to visit there, perhaps I will before I join them.
The Wall is sacred ground to me, a place to honor, a place to pray, a place to remember and above all a place to protect for our posterity.
A part of me resides there in spirit remembering those who gave everything they had.
I have no words worth repeating here for protesters, the anit-war crowd, the fat cats in DC who would sell us out on a whim.
"For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know."
We remember. We will always remember those who went before us and those that are there now. May God bless them.
God Bless America
solo