One veteran I would like to honor is me. Many of you may not know, but I served in the Gulf War. Yes, while you were playing grab ass, or hoping Keystone Light went on sale again, I was out essentially preserving your right to continue on this earth.
My story was like many others, I was motivated by a sense of what I could do for my country, of how I could give back, and also I was literally majoring in beer drinking in college.
The answer came in the form of a Navy recruiter. After showing me posters of exotic ports, videos of activities in these exotic ports, and giving me a collection of various antibiotics for actual visits to the exotic ports, I signed up! (It actually never occurred to me HOW we actually got to those ports, or WHAT we did between ports. I sort of vaguely pictured a cruise ship, with lots of downtime between ports. Little did I know.)
After saying goodbye to friends and family, I shipped off to bootcamp. I will be detailing each phase of my Navy service in future posts, I want this to focus on just the general fact that I served, and you did not.
Or maybe you did, but not in a war. Or, maybe you did serve in a war, I don't know, the point is, I laid it on the line, and I came back. I got lots of letters when I was at sea, my "friends" laughingly telling me they were "drinking one for me" or letting me know my girlfriend was "like a rabbit that has been let out of a cage" the day our ship left.
I enjoyed these letters, and even though I was staring death down every day, never knowing if tomorrow morning would find me alive and breathing, or fish food at the bottom of the ocean, a tear forever frozen on the cavity that used to be my eye before a grouper ate it, it was good to know that their lives were progressing.
Sometimes my brother would write and say class was going well, and I would laugh and write back that that was great, and that things were going for well for me also, as I was able to eat that day.
Or my sister would write and say she "missed her big brother" and I would write back and ask if she would still think of me as her big brother when I came back, and all that was left of me fit in a shoebox, and it was literally just my foot and a shoe, in a shoebox. Would I still be her "big brother" then?
Mom told me later she cried when I wrote this, but I told Mom she'd probably cry more when they might have to notify my family the last thing they saw was my body explode - head flying off, a smile still on it, sailor hat still attached at a jaunty angle.
Somehow, though, I came back. I have moved on, but you never forget. So many memories, getting hit in the head with a box, watching a guy slide face first on non-skid, and leaving his face behind; the grimace on people's faces when they got Dear John letters, the snicker I made when I reminded them their name was not John, and if she couldn't remember their name, it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway.
Many people ask today, "What can we to honor your service?" and I tell them, we don't want much, just a tip of the hat, slight nod of the head, and just the realization that you owe us your very existence.
At least buy them lunch. (I like In and Out.)
