MEMORIAL DAY

It is a day like any other. When I was young I remember the Doughboys in their uniforms for the parade. It seems so long ago and it was. Kind of like the rest I find it a little remarkable that I put in 30 years, my father put in 26 years, his father put in 30 years. We pretty much covered the wars for this century and the last. I never lost anyone. I wasn't like Lex and the others that expected to lose three or six sailors every deployment. We all came home.

My father lost a number of soldiers in Vietnam. His father was pretty much the G4 planning the Normandy Invasion and never made it out of England. When you knew the plans you were somewhat constrained in where the Army would let you go. Europe wasn't on the list.

When I was young and living in Carlisle the war came home to me. It really was exactly like that movie about the Ia Drang battle. The telegrams would come in and we would dress up smartly and pay an immediate call on the new widow and her kids. As I recall, almost all of the deaths were helicopter related, shot down or crashed.

They were all so young.

It is good to remember them. They gave everything.