The weather certainly remembered it was November yesterday. I think this is the latest I’ve ever had to turn on the heat in the house (for a very appreciative Panamanian). I heard on the news today that 2023 will go down as the hottest year on record, so that figures. With the cold though came the persistent autumnal winds to scour our hilltop. This aids greatly in clearing leaves. I’m glad I don’t live at the bottom of the hill where they end up. I learned the valuable lesson after wrestling the grill into the garage for winter storage that it’s probably a good idea to turn off the gas supply as the knobs tend to get turned during the wrestling. I was able to air out the garage before my Favorite Panamanian noticed and/or the house blew up. I include below the words I usually post for Veterans Day since I’ll be on the road starting tomorrow for the annual FBR birthday bash (she’s a Veterans’ Day baby).
What
is a Vet?
Some
veterans bear visible signs of their service:
a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of
shrapnel in the leg – or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of
adversity. Except in parades, however,
the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can’t tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet? He is the cop on the beat who spent six months
in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel
carriers didn’t run out of fuel. He is
the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy
behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of
exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.
She, or he, is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep
sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang. He is the POW who went away one person and
came back another – or didn’t come back at all.
He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat but has
saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no account rednecks and gang members
into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs. He is the parade riding Legionnaire who pins
on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand. He is the career quartermaster who watches
the ribbons and medals pass him by. He
is the three anonymous heroes in the Tomb of the Unknowns, whose presence at
the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the
anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or
in the ocean’s sunless deep. He is the
old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket, palsied now and agonizingly slow,
who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and wishes all day long that his wife was
still alive to hold him when the nightmares come. He is an ordinary and yet an
extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life’s most vital
years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others
would not have to sacrifice theirs. He is a Soldier and a savior and a sword
against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest
testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known. So remember,
each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say
Thank You. That’s all most people need,
and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been
awarded or were awarded. Two little words that mean a lot, “THANK YOU”. Remember November 11th is Veterans Day. “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 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 Denis O'Brien, USMC
Those
are powerful words and I know it’s hokey but it still brings tears to my eyes
because of their intrinsic truth. My proudest moment in uniform was not at a promotion,
a change of command or a medal ceremony. It was while I was at Washington’s
Union Station, in uniform, waiting to pick up my daughter. A businessman
RECURRING CHARACTERS:
ABFA – Amazing Best Family
Athlete - my daughter
in law; BR3 – Blog Reader #3 – granddaughter
#3; BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel -
second granddaughter; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue
about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; CRC - Connecticut
Riverboat Captain – another close friend from high school, renowned sailor
of the big river; Curbside Girls – close
friends of my daughter acquired during him her single days in Brooklyn; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which
grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of
course); FBR - First Blog Reader -
first granddaughter; First Friday –
celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Keene
Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene,
NH; Kindergarten Friend – friend
since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife –
her US sisters, my wife is the 3rd Musquetera (musketeer); Namesake Nephew –
son of Great Aunt and Soxfather named after me; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia
member; PanaGals – female relatives /friends
of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin
Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we
have lived & their spouses; PCR - Pittsburgh College Roommate– high
school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; PCR+1 - Pittsburgh College Roommate’s wife; Riggins - also known as the
Grandpuppy, son's dog; Soxfather -
my brother in law; Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course
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