Veterans Day - Not Forgotten

[Guest guest]

Dear Butch,

Thank you very much for your Veterans Day email. I just forwarded it

to my son, who is at the US Naval Academy to share with his roommates and

other friends.

We are now waiting for this Wednesday to come. The Firsties/Seniors at

the US Naval Academy will learn which service selection that they have.

(The US Naval Academy provides officers for both the US Marine Corps and

the US Navy for those who are not familiar with what branches of the

government that the Naval Academy prepares our bright, young people for.)

My son will find out this Wednesday whether he will be US Marine Air or

Navy Surface Warfare along with the rest of the graduating May, 2007 class.

This is one of the major moments for these young people. I don't know when

the other Academies tell their Seniors about their selections but I am

assuming that it is about this time so Butch, your Veterans Day email is

appropriate and timely. I believe that it will be good for these young

people to think about what our heros had to say about war, peace and

serving our country because we do not know when we will be called upon to

do the same here. 9/11 taught us that.

Again, Butch, thank you for your email. Happy Veterans Day to You and

to all Veterans, parents, wives, husbands, sons, daughters, and other

related relatives.

God Bless You All.

Sincerely,

Rhavda Emison

Proud Mom of 2007 US Naval Academy Grad

 

Original Message:

-----------------

Butch Owen butchbsi

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 01:24:15 -0800

 

Veterans Day - Not Forgotten

 

 

Hi y'all,

 

I want thank all the Veterans on the list for their service and their

sacrifices.

 

I also thank the moms and pops and wives and husbands here who have

daughters or sons or spouses serving in uniform as we read this note ..

the families of our service members also pay a heavy price for our

freedoms .. those families are an integral part of the Armed Forces team.

 

" To be prepared for War is one of the most effectual means of preserving

peace. " ~George Washington

 

" If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and

gave us independence. " ~Thomas Jefferson

 

" War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and

degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is

worth a war, is worse. " ~John Stuart Mill

 

It is the soldier, not the reporter,

Who has given us freedom of the press.

 

It is the soldier, not the poet,

Who has given us freedom of speech.

 

It is the soldier, not the politician,

Who has given us the right to vote.

 

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,

Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

 

It is the soldier, who salutes the flag,

Who serves beneath the flag,

 

And whose coffin is draped by the flag,

Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

 

~Father Dennis Edward O'Brian (United States Marine Corps)

 

You are reading this ........... thanks to a teacher.

You are reading it in English .. thanks to a soldier!

 

Armed Forces of the United States, past and present, America loves and

appreciates you. Thank you. :-)

 

 

 

 

 

--

mail2web - Check your email from the web at

http://mail2web.com/ .

[Guest guest]

Thankee, Butch! I know a lot of people appreciated your post, whether they

say so or keep quiet like I almost did.

 

Only three of us at work are vets, but we knocked fists and swapped a few

stories. When I was an employer, back in Texas, every vet who ever worked

for me had this day off with pay. Nowadays kids who can't even remember

Desert Storm get a holiday, but every vet I know has to work. If he has

work, that is.

 

When I think of the intensity and sheer quantity of experience that three

short years crammed into my life, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Then I

think of the guys who populated the ward where I worked...most had stepped

on mines, though a few were napalm victims. A fragging or two, I think.

From Vietnam they'd all gone to Okinawa to be stabilized, and if they'd been

lucky enough to be alive 24 hours later, they were at Brooke Army Medical

Center at Ft. Sam Houston, San Antonio. That's where I spent a couple

years. When I think of those guys (the burn patients' name for themselves

was " Crispy Critters " ) I don't think any of it is worth that.

 

You would not believe how mutilated a human body can be, and still be alive.

 

Must have been 1971, that summer I had a two-week leave, and decided to

drive home to San Diego and back. I don't remember much about the drive

west, other than stopping at the Grand Canyon, and a truly bizarre character

I picked up outside El Paso and finally ditched in Lordsburg. I was focused

on seeing my family. My dad was a music professor, and we bred and showed

bullmastiffs. I couldn't wait to see the dogs. On the drive back, I

decided to stay off freeways. I drove back roads and bypassed the biggest

cities completely. While I was home on leave there was a wildfire that just

about wiped out eastern San Diego County. They evacuated our neighborhood,

but my dad and I stayed and kept the music studio and the kennels hosed

down. The fire came right up to our back fence, and then the wind shifted.

Nothing on our hill was touched.

 

Somewhere east of Yuma I picked up a couple of hitchhiking hippies, who

turned out to be carrying a pickle jar full of pills and other illegal stuff

with them. About 1AM I was cruising down the main drag of Casa Grande,

Arizona, looking for an open coffee shop. County sheriff slipped in behind

me and sure enough, pulled me over. I rolled down my window and said, " I

wasn't speeding, was I, Officer? " The guy said, I swear to God: " Y'all

better get that chip off your shoulder, boy. " If it'd been daylight he'd

have had the mirror shades, for sure. This guy was the real deal. Only

thing that kept him from searching the car was the fact that I was an

active-duty soldier, and my uniform was hanging in plain view in the back

seat. I ditched those guys, too. Those were wild days. Might of been a

little wild, myself. Seems to me I had a little contraband of my own

stashed up under the - but, memory grows dim.

 

Somewhere in west Texas I was chased by a twister for half an afternoon -

always behind me a few miles, but ALWAYS right there behind me. Spooky

weather. Green clouds, hooting winds or unnaturally still. Called my

girlfriend from Abilene in the middle of the night. Got to San Antonio with

a day and a half to spare.

 

Corporal Danny was another guy who was a little wild. Used to be Sergeant

Danny, but he'd gone AWOL in country and gone off to live with the

Montagnards for the better part of a year. We'd go down to the Alamo -

right smack in the middle of downtown San Antonio - on a Saturday night,

when this old guy named Bongo Joe used to set up about midnight in the

middle of the plaza and play til dawn. Bongo Joe was this old black guy who

played steel drums - 50-gallon oil drums that he'd hammered into shaped and

tuned with a 2-lb sledge hammer and a hatchet. Had this portable PA system,

he'd hang the mike around his neck, play the drums and whistle the melody.

Dude was awesome. That was my first taste of reggae, and it was great.

Bongo Joe used to pass around huge joints - spliffs - and tell stories about

Jamaica. One time he said that to join his religion, you had to kill three

Christians. He looked at me and smiled. I remember his gold tooth. " I've

killed two, " he said. Me and Danny knew these two Gypsy girls - Gail and

Serena - and sometimes they snuck away and joined us at the Alamo, in the

wee hours, drinking beer and listening to otherworldly radical reggae funk.

Always, it was understood that the girls came in peril of the lives of

everyone involved, if their Romana brothers and fathers and uncles ever

found out. I pretty much believed them. I am not making this up.

 

I was 20. I'm glad I wasn't actually in combat. There are things I'll

never forget that have a lot to do with how I feel about war today. I

wasn't a very good soldier, although I was a damn good corpsman. No, I

wouldn't trade that time. And when the three of us high-fived today, we all

knew that no matter which war and no matter how any of us might feel about

what we went through, we shared something special with a special family of

men and women of all ages. My very best wishes to each of you, wherever you

are.

 

Dave

 

--

 

 

Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.2/528 - Release 11/10/2006

[Guest guest]

Hi y'all,

 

I want thank all the Veterans on the list for their service and their

sacrifices.

 

I also thank the moms and pops and wives and husbands here who have

daughters or sons or spouses serving in uniform as we read this note ..

the families of our service members also pay a heavy price for our

freedoms .. those families are an integral part of the Armed Forces team.

 

" To be prepared for War is one of the most effectual means of preserving

peace. " ~George Washington

 

" If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and

gave us independence. " ~Thomas Jefferson

 

" War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and

degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is

worth a war, is worse. " ~John Stuart Mill

 

" The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his rights, makes the

most reliable soldier on earth. " ~Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson

 

" A really great people, proud and high-spirited, would face all the

disasters of war rather than purchase that base prosperity which is

bought at the price of national honor. " ~Theodore Roosevelt

 

" No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against

wrong and get peace from his acquiescence. " ~Woodrow Wilson

 

" Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the

spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the

victory. " ~General George Patton

 

" Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so

few. " ~Sir Winston Churchill

 

" In war, there are no unwounded soldiers " . ~José Narosky

 

" This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the

home of the brave. " ~Elmer Davis

 

" When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them. "

~Chinese Proverb

 

" Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire

to live taking the form of readiness to die. " ~G.K. Chesterton

 

" In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave,

and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for

then it costs nothing to be a patriot. " ~Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935

 

" Let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so

valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve

our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate ourselves to the task

of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been

in vain. " ~Dwight Eisenhower

 

" The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must

suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. " ~Douglas MacArthur

 

It is the soldier, not the reporter,

Who has given us freedom of the press.

 

It is the soldier, not the poet,

Who has given us freedom of speech.

 

It is the soldier, not the politician,

Who has given us the right to vote.

 

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,

Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

 

It is the soldier, who salutes the flag,

Who serves beneath the flag,

 

And whose coffin is draped by the flag,

Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

 

~Father Dennis Edward O'Brian (United States Marine Corps)

 

You are reading this ........... thanks to a teacher.

You are reading it in English .. thanks to a soldier!

 

Armed Forces of the United States, past and present, America loves and

appreciates you. Thank you. :-)