This is the day for those who fought, suffered and died for nothing in Vietnam.
This is the day for those who have fought, suffered and died for nothing in Iraq.
This is the day for those who are fighting, suffering and dying in Iraq for nothing.
My Dad in India, 1943
My father was 26 years old and newly married when he was drafted into WWII. After a few months of training stateside he traveled to India. He didn’t fly but went on a small crowded ship going around the stormy Cape of Good Hope. He spent almost 3 years in the China/Burma/India theatre. This was before email and satellite phones. My mother was lucky to get 3 or 4 very old and very censored letters a month. She first heard about his being awarded the Bronze Star in the local newspaper. He returned with a multitude of tropical diseases and had to pay for most of the care himself. I guess some things really never do change. My father passed away about 2 ½ years ago and was proud of his service until the end. He sacrificed and fought in a war that everyone knew needed to be fought. This is a day for him and those like him who fought, suffered and died for a cause.
My very own brother-in-arms is insinuating that my military service was less than heroic! I'm devastated! I feel as if I have been savaged by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. (By the way, the 40-hour week is something of an exaggeration.)
ReplyDeleteBill in DC
Poetic License Bill, I agree that sometimes it was more but as I recall at other times it was less. It was indeed less than the 60 hours a week I was putting in as a salaried slave my last few years in the civilian work force.
ReplyDeleteMy recollection is that it was generally a lot less than 40 hours, or at least it seems like it was a lot less than 40 hours a week, now that I have had some taste of what working a real 40+ hour week is like (except when we were preparing for an IG, which seemed to be most of the time--but to call such preparations "work" would be an insult to anyone whose honest toil makes a valuable contribution to the economy). And you would have to subtract out from time described as "work" those illuminating Friday afternoon training and "character guidance" sessions. Remember the incomprehensible WWII era training film explaining how to operate some sort of cold-weather contraption studded with all kinds of levers and dials? The chaplain whose lecture on selfless dedication to others culminated in the "Silver Beaver" award--and didn't have a clue why a whole auditorium full of coarse and crude guys like us broke out into delirious laughter? The film where the goat gets killed by nerve gas? Major D*v*n*'s "lecture" on security, which began in a normal enough tone of voice but gradually built up to a deranged rant against the entire audience, who, of course, were rolling in the aisles at the performance? And who can forget the delightful Friday afternoons--once a month--when you had to perform "motor stables," which consisted of gassing up your vehicle and going out for a spin in the Bavarian countryside? (They wouldn't take the risk of assigning me to a Dusenhalf--I had to drive a jeep, which was just fine with me.) Just to be fair, you might also have to subtract out the time lost from our so-called work to hangovers from our regular nightly bacchanals and other forms of substance abuse. But, anyway, even though I'm not exactly in a position to lay claim to having made the ULTIMATE sacrifice for my country, I'm outraged that you have the nerve, THE NERVE, to suggest that my military career was anything less than heroic. And just for the record, it wasn't downtown Munich--it was Giesing, about 20 minutes by tram, as I recall, from downtown Munich.
ReplyDelete