THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE

I have been asked if I plan on writing aother story for Veteran's Day.  I thought I had written it all in my last two stories that had been published in the local newspapers.  Then I thought no, it could never all be written.  In an attempt to refrain from repeating myself, I will expound on the five words that comprise the title of this story.  It is my hope that the reader will heed the importance of the powerful message they convey.
When President Bill Clinton was inaugurated in January of 1993, he welcomed countless numbers of people into the White House.  Many of these were active duty military.  His first words to each member in uniform were "Thank you for your service."  He shook their hands and looked them in the eye as he uttered those words.
I watched very closely with great interest.  There was no doubt in my mind that this was an act of sincerity being played over and over as I could see the welling in the eyes of the President and felt the same in my own.  Those words seem to have become some kind of a cliche and are and will be repeated many times with the coming of another Veteran's Day.  Thank you, President Clinton, for spreading that message.
It wasn't like that at all when I returned from Vietnam in 1971.  I wasn't expecting any kind of a welcome home, especially since we had been briefed about possibly encountering war protesters which we were told of course to ignore.  The first thing I looked forward to as we de-planed at the SEA/TAC Airport in "Washington was simply stepping on American soil after surviving the most challenging year of my life in the war torn country of Vietnam.  Many of our troops got down on their hands and knees and kissed the ground, they were so happy to be home.  After putting my foot down the next thing I looked forward to was seeing some smiling American faces and be able to talk to them and ask for assistance.
All of our initial happiness was quickly put on hold as we did encounter a group of "peace marchers."  We did all we could to ingore their remarks.  I even heard the words "baby killers" directed to us.  I was told by a security officer they had a right to say whatever they wanted to as long as they didn't cross a certain line.
How could these people be so naive?  I soon learned this was not an isolated incident.  There were people all over the country actually burning the American flag.  There seemed to be a huge barrier placed between our happiness and returning home.  Most of us were put on stand-by lists for flights home.
Maybe the airport personnel were overworked.  I don't remember any pleasant encounters with anyone.  They may have seen too many flights returning and too many uniforms.  It could be that our uniform was the brunt of their frustration.  They probably didn't realize that Americans were dying every day in Vietnam for their freedom.  Further they didn't realize that we as individuals had no choice in our involvement in Vietnam.  Those decisions were made in Washington, DC.  That is where these peace marchers should be and not allowed elsewhere.
As I write this story, I have concluded that the act of war is insane.  There has to be another way.  So many innocent people are killed.  To put my stamp on that insanity statement, read on:
First a quick history that may erase much of that naivety.  Most everyone that served in Vietnam, saw, felt and liced the war first hand and probably became more antiwar than the loudest of any of those peace marchers. Some saw their friends suffer and die.  I saw much more than my share of death and destruction, which included the maimws and mutilated bodies of children from villages that were destroyed.
Most of the returning flights carried about two hundred troops and for every two hundred there were probably fifty draftees in that total.  What is a draftee?  A draftee is a person that was forced to play a lottery game.  If they refused to play, they would either leave the Country or they may have been jailed.  When they did sign up they were issued a card.  On this card was number that was placedsomrwhere, I don't know if computers were used or not.  Somehow those numbers were secured so the game would be played fairly.
If you number was chosen and you weren't attending college, it really didn't matter in some instances if you were married or not, or if you had a good paying job or not. If you were in good health you would soon become a member of the US Army.  You would be sent to basic training for eight weeks and after another eight weeks of advanced training, you would be sent to a country thousands of miles from home to fight in a war in a country you may never even knew existed.  Many thousands of you will be killed in this war. How insane is that?
Now for what may be the ultimate of insanity.  This is something that does happen during wartime.  Take one of those draftees who was sent to Vietnam.  He was on a mission and somehow made a wrong turn and was separated from his unit.  It wasn't even six months ago that his number came up.  He had just turned twenty years old.  He said good bye to his girl friend and left his well paying job that he had worked so hard to secure.  In those days a college education was not always a requirement to land a decent job.  Now here he is lost in war torn Vietnam thousands of miles from home.  He soon comes face to face with an NVA (North Vietnamese Army) soldier who himself is barely twenty years old and was forced into this war.  Neither of vthem knew why they were where they were.  The only knowing they both had at that moment was they must take the others life or their own would be taken.  It was kill or be killed.  There has to be another way.
I retired from the Army in 1982 after twenty one years of service, two of which were in Vietnem. Since then I kept my Army career to myself and rarely talked about it because of the unpleasant memories of Vietnam.
A couple of years ago my story was published in the Newsa Herald and the Ile Camera.  Shortly after I was introduced to the chief of vthe city of Taylor Fire Department.  His name is Vince Fedel.  Vince has since become a close friend of mine.  At our introduction it sounded to me like he was thanking me for my service.  I asked him to repeat what he had said.  He then extended his arm, grasped y hand, looked me squarely in the eye and said with a firm grip "Thank you for your service."  I could feel his sincerity as I noticed the welling in his eyes.  Once again, I thank you President Clinton.
This Veteran's Day many of you will have the opportunity to be close enough to someone in uniform. v It doesn't matter if you personally know the individual or not, the uniform they are wearing represents your freedom.  I repeat, the uniform they are wearing represents your freedom.  WEhen this happens do yourself a huge favor.  You will never realize the feeling until you have done it.  Extend your arm, grasp his/her hand, look him/her in the eye and blurt out these words:  "Thank you for your service."
Again I ask that you give that moment of silence for those that did not return.  Those that could never become veterans or fathers or grandfathers as so many of us have.  Though we could never grasp their hand or look them in the eye, we can keep them in our prayers and our remembrance and forever "Thank them for their Service."  

The Month of May

The month of May offers much more than the ending of Spring and the early beginning of Summer.  There are two special days during this month that without a doubt make it the most cherished month of the year.  This story will combine the second Sunday and the last Monday of this memorable month in my attempt to not only honor all Mothers on their special day but to also keep the remembrance alive of all those that gave their lives in any war so we may be able to live ours in ways of our own choosing.  My “remembrance” focus will be on the Vietnam War since that is where I spent the better part of two years of my life.  I have written a few stories of my experiences in Vietnam.  I will be piecing together parts from them in an attempt to keep something so important to the forefront.  That something would be “remembrance.”

As I begin writing this I am on my way from Michigan to The Villages, Florida where I will meet up with my brothers, Jim and Wayne.  On the 21^st of April we will be celebrating my Mother's 96^th birthday.  We plan to do so by taking her to dinner and then watch a baseball game with her. 

How can I be so lucky to be able to join in on what has become an annual event?  I ask that since I am   into my fifth year with this so called incurable disease called Parkinson's.  Regardless of the depth of despair this God given disease may someday lead to, everything that has happened so far since it incurred  has been positive.  It took 37 years since leaving Vietnam for me to begin writing.  It was after the diagnosis of Parkinson's, some personal counseling from my brother, Wayne and the trade off of what was known as my best friend, my daily six pack for sobriety on my knees at the Vietnam Memorial  in Washington, DC. that led me to believe I wasn’t going to die with my music still in me.

In 1970 and 1971 I was stationed in Pleiku which was located in what was known as the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, along the Cambodian border where some of the heaviest fighting of the war took place.  I was assigned to an evacuation hospital and my primary duties were related to the admission and disposition of patients.  I saw much more than my share of death and destruction.

How could I possibly forget the 22 year old burn patient that died in my hands while crying out for his Mother with his dying breath, or the 19 year old that I watched die in the emergency room because he couldn't be taken to surgery soon enough. 

Further profound memories were of mass casualties when one helicopter after another would

bring in sheer numbers of young men with mutilated bodies and the heart wrenching screams of the

wounded as they begged for morphine to ease their pain.  Yes, they all had Mothers, every one of them.  Some had girl friends and some had wives, but they all had mothers.  There were a total of 58,267 Americans that died in Vietnam. I personally wear a bracelet with that number inscribed for an everlasting memory.

Many people have said and continue to say that the Vietnam War was not a popular war and that we shouldn't have been involved in it in the first place since it was a war that we couldn't win.  My response to that would be of course it wasn't a popular war.  The definition of the word popular is liked by most people.  Tell me what war was ever liked by most people.  As far as the should haves and could haves, just drop them completely and look at the reality.  We were there.

As I closed on my Veteran's Day story last November I revealed these statistics.  Of the 58,267 Americans that were killed in Vietnam 39,996 of them or about 70 per cent of them were 22 years old or younger.  What I failed to mention since I do not have the actual totals were the number of draftees included in that total.  You can be sure their numbers were in the thousands.  These were the ones that were taken from their homes, their jobs, their girlfriends and sometimes their wives and yes of course their mothers.  Most of them were 21 to 22 years old.  They were sent to fight in a war in a country thousands of miles from home.  A country they may never even knew existed and many thousands of them were killed.  Yes, they all had Mothers.  Could you imagine approaching any one of those mothers and telling her that we shouldn't have been in Vietnam and that her loved one died for no reason.  Of course not.  If mistakes were made of our involvement in Vietnam, those mistakes were made in Washington.

I also asked in that Veteran's Day story that we all give a moment of silence in remembrance of those 58,267 that gave their lives so we could live ours.  We must never let those memories die.  This time I am pleading that you give that moment on both Mother's Day and on Memorial Day.  This time close your eyes in privacy if you wish, put all of your thoughts on those 58,267.  You will soon begin to feel a welling in your eyes.  When this begins blurt out these words out loud:  “Thank you my friend, we miss you.”  If you hear sort of a creak in your own voice, I've reached you.

A Play on Words

At our last creative writers club meeting I was given an assignment of writing a story about "A Play on Words."  This could be on any subject as long as I was playing with words.  Did you know that there are over 100,000 words in the dictionary?  Bear with me, I think you are going to enjoy reading this.
I'm going to begin by making a comparison of any one of those 100,000 words to that of a simple leaf upon a tree.  The branches on a tree create thousands of leaves.  When the cold weather arrives the leaves begin falling.  The wind may whisk them straight ahewad, to the left or to the right.  Many of them will touch and make a connection.  Some will touch leaves of another tree and make a connection.  The leaf that touches no other will die alone.  Think about that, it rarely happens.
So where is the equation?  First we must define a word.  What is a word?  A word is a word and nothing else, at least until it is paired with another word.  If a word is written and is not paired with another it will be useless, have little meaning and eventually will be trashed and just as that leaf upon that tree it will die alone.
Probably as many as 75 per cent of the same words have been used in all of the stories I have written.  I might add that I doubt if I even use 1,000 of the 100,000 words that are available.  I could probably say the same for others that write, including famous authors.  Writers do not invent words as they write.  Tame words are simply moved around to create a totally different meaning.  They are at times changed for the same purpose.  That is the miracle of words.  The shifting of words abruptly change story lines.
There are several words in the dictionary that are spelled exactly the same but have totally different meanings.  There is even a descriptive word for those words.  They are called homographs.  Here are a few of them:  There - Change - Play - Run - Foot - Right - Step - Class - Bill.  No wonder it is so difficult for foreigners to learn the English language.
Let's return to the pairing of words.  When a single word is paired with another and another it begins to gain strength.  Soon the words become sentences.  The strength and power they could yield would dep;end on what words were used and how they were put together.  They could simply be two, three, four or five letter words rendomly chosen.  I will use nine words here for an example:  With - You - In - Die - Your - Do - Still - Not - Music.Those words were shuffled around a bit and eventually came together in this fashion.  Do not die with your music still in you.  I do not know from where those words were originally put together that way, but I do know that it was my brother, Wayne that uttered them to me.They were not only powerful words, they were life altering.  Eight of those words are known as homonyms while one of them remains nameless.  Those eight words are spelled differently and have totally different meanings than their counterparts, yet they are pronounced exactly the same.  Here they are:  Dew - Knot - Dye - Withe - Yore' - Mucic - Still - Inn - Ewe. 
Notice that the word still is the only one that is not a homonym.  Could that mean that I may still have a few songs yet to sing?