Welcome Home to all of our Vietnam Veterans! Thank you for your service, your sacrifice, your willingness to ensure all future veterans are not forgotten, your ability to shoulder a responsibility that should have been shared, and for the lessons you taught us as a nation. I stand for you, beside you and will never forget all that you have given us. You will never again be forgotten as I welcome you home with open arms and pride in my heart.
I am struggling for words today. I want to honor the Veterans in a special way but nothing seems to measure up to their courage. I want to honor my father but I just miss him too much to write about him today. Yesterday I had the incredible good fortune to spend some time with a few new friends who happened to serve in the Marines as well as a friend of theirs who serve those Marines and other Veterans to this day. For today I will hold onto Tony’s smiling face for he gave me a piece of my dad back yesterday with his kind words and funny stories. And I will hold Pete’s selfless actions as he is owed so much more for his kindness and outreach to our veterans. I will always remember standing in the park yesterday as I watched the Warrior’s Watch Riders, those who welcome newly minted veterans home, stand at attention raising their flags, lowering their heads honoring those left behind and those yet to come. I wept yesterday for the kindness showed by the Veterans, the honor they exhibit now as they did then, the remembrance of all our veterans and truly felt they were speaking to me, about my father and for my father. I healed just a little bit more thanks to the wonderful people I had a chance to meet yesterday. For that and their service I am eternally grateful. Welcome Home, God Bless and Happy Veterans Day!
There was more than one way to become a soldier in “Nam”. A person could either enlist or be drafted. Each avenue had its own attributes yet the same conclusion. The situations encountered during combat did not discern between the two. Every soldier faced the probability their lives would be forever altered in ways a non-soldier could not imagine. Upon returning to American soil the Veteran often dealt with issues such as Read the rest of this entry »
America had sent their sons to fight in a war framed as just by the politicians. A war in which America was led to believe her own substance was under attack. Hometown, USA offered her young sentinels to stem the tide of communism that was supposedly a breath away from our shores. America believed the Domino Theory and shipped off our young soldiers with well wishes, pride and tears. They ushered them home with little to no parades, memorials nor recognition. “…parades and memorials are symbols of public recognition, even of absolution. Recognition, reentry, and cleansings are required by every warrior who returns from battle to rejoin his people.”1 Read the rest of this entry »
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2nd Generation Legacy 