This weekend I will remember and honor my Grandfather and 6 of his brothers who went from Normandy to Berlin. Their stories inspired me as a child, they were a source of endless hours of awe and amazement around the campfire on our many hunting and fishing trips.
After I returned from 22 months in Vietnam he and his brothers were always there to help me get through the tough times afterword. I always had someone to talk to and get drunk with, someone who would listen fully understanding what I went through. They all live in my heart and their pictures hold a place of honor on my walls.
On Sunday I will host a gathering of men I have served with, the guest of honor is a Master Gunnery Sargent who served with me for 12 years, the last 5 as my personal aid, driver and body guard. I owe far more than my life to this man, he saved my sorry tail more times than I can count, he personally carried me 3 kilometers to an extraction site after I was seriously wounded in a firefight no one has ever heard of.
The men who will be attending this BBQ are beyond friends they are true brothers in arms, all of us lived in close quarters, slept in the same hole in the ground, stood back to back in battle knowing that each would give their life for the other.
Some gave it all and as long as one of us is still alive so will the memory of who they were and what they sacrificed.
As a nation and a people we have come a long way from being spit upon as I walked through the terminal in San Francisco after returning home from Vietnam. But we still have a very long way to go. Our Veterans are badly mistreated by the very organization that is supposed to help them, the Veterans Administrations unofficial motto is "Delay, Deny and we Hope you DIE". Yet we as Americans do nothing to demand change, we allow our corrupt politicians to send money and resources to foreign countries that hate America, they spend our hard earned money on bridges to nowhere and yet another study on the mating habits of flies. All the while there are veterans homeless on the streets in need of help.
Yes one day a year we honor those who served but what are you doing to help those who served the other 364 days a year? Who here has called, written and demanded from their local political leader that change is needed, the the VA is a self serving bureaucracy filled with far too many people who could care less about the men and women they are supposed to help?
