Saturday, November 11, 2006

Thanks to All Who Served

I will admit that I got so wrapped up in my daily life that I completely forgot about Veterans Day until Simon and Mark reminded me this morning.

It’s sad to admit, but this is an easy holiday for me to forget since I really don’t have many veterans in my life. My Dad serviced B-52s at Anderson Air Force Base on Guam during Vietnam, but I don’t think he ever really thought of himself as a veteran. He had hearing loss in the high-pitch range from the engine noise and he had a cool black line across the top of the fingers of his right hand from where an engine access hatch swung shut on him and basically tattooed him with grease. But when he talked about veterans, he tended to refer to other people…people he felt had risked more in their service for the country. So, while I’ve always been grateful for our service men and women and their sacrifices…it’s always been rather abstract.

So, while I can’t write any glowing praises for specific veterans…I do want to take a moment and thank a few veterans in the making that are important to me.

Jonathan
JonathanUncle Norman’s eldest son just returned last week from Iraq. He’d been over there for about a year as part of a service crew that kept helicopters in flying condition. Prior to that had been stationed in Korea. For the foreseeable future, he’ll be down at Fort Hood in Texas and our family is thrilled to have him safely back. Uncle Norman and his family just returned from a welcome home ceremony, but the rest of the family will get to hug him for the first time at Thanksgiving. Can’t wait to see you, Jonathan!

Ian
IanIan is my cousin on Dad’s side. He was stationed in Iraq for quite some time as part of some sort of special forces. I’ll admit that I’m a bit unclear on the details. He, like Jonathan, has found a reprieve from Iraq recently. He’s currently stationed in Guam which is much better than Iraq from what I understand. Enjoy the island climate, Ian.

Kieran
Kieran...with fangs!!Duran’s younger brother has recently joined the Marines. He hasn’t left the States just yet, but we don’t see as much of him as we used to since he’s currently training out in San Diego to be a communications guy. His Xbox Gamertag is Khyron42 if you want to buzz in and tell him hello. We missed you at the Halloween party, Kieran.

Thank you to each of you specifically and to the thousands of veterans and soldiers who have risked so much. I know that the only reason I’m able to sit here on a lazy Saturday and watch my daughter joyfully thrash about on her play mat is because of the countless people through the years who have made sacrifices like yours. And thanks to the veterans like my Dad who never thought of themselves as heroes.

Thank you, all.

8 comments:

One Wink at a Time said...

I would like to join you in thanking all Veterans for their deep commitments, especially the men you have mentioned here. God bless them and their families.

Moksha Gren said...

Thanks, Linda.
I like your new photo, by the way...very mysterious.

One Wink at a Time said...

Thanks, MG. It's just like me to do things backward like that- First post a straight-forward and then a "mysterious" as you call it. I'm regressing... Before long I will put up a picture of bad artwork or a cartoon character or something equally innocuous. Yours is way cool, incase I haven't told you.

Moksha Gren said...

It's never too late to foster a little mystery. I look forward to seeing your bad artwork.

One Wink at a Time said...

MG: If you haven't picked up on it by now, I have a piss of a time changing anything on my blog, most of it is trial and error and then when I go back to redo I have another pissy time trying to remember what I did... So you might be stuck with mystery for quite some time... ;-)

Mark said...

Great tribute to your friends. I have a friend and a former co-worker who are over there. One of them came back for a while, just long enough to heal from an injury suffered in a roadside bomb explosion.

Moksha Gren said...

Mark: I hope your friend made a full recovery. I'm sorry to hear about his injury.

Simon: Good catch. Should have known you'd recognize a Robotech reference. I'd say the odds of you missing that would be 3720 to 1, eh? Maybe we should collect all your geeky factoids and file them away in a box marked "9906753".

Moksha Gren said...

Simon: Don't feel bad, you're still one of the biggest geeks I know. Even I had to google the ark thing to make sure I got it right (the astroid thing I knew by heart, of course).

Jet: Yeah, Brandon did his part, but that just leaves me to wonder where he went so wrong. Comes back shaving his legs and insulting loofa users. If that ain't post traumatic stress disorder, I don't know what is ;)