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As well as all our war veterans, I'd like to honor the man who looked forward to being my father-in-law one day, Ricardo Gimenez.
Ricardo made the decision to join the Air Force when he was 17, lying to the Air Force about his age so that he could join early against his parents wishes. He didn't know what he was getting into then, but knowing the man that he was, I'm sure he would have made that decision twice. He was one of the first airmen to arrive in Viet-Nam, and one of the last ones to leave.
For what seems the brief years that I knew him and the year that he lived with my fiancee and I for care, I saw the scars that his years in war left on him. Ricardo's presence instilled a deep respect for what the men and women who we (as a human race) send into war to fight for our beliefs, interests, and freedom. I wish that he were still here so that I could thank him for this respect, and let him know that I respect him as well in this.
Although I know he had a hard time understanding me (he did have a couple of mental conditions because of his experiences in war), I know he cared for me as his own, and I miss his presence greatly.
Ricardo, a ten point disabled veteran, passed from this life to the next a year ago this past September of a heart attack due to his renal failure.
Those were the four white mules my great grandfather, Arthur, drove as a team in World War I in France. He took wagon loads of supplies to the front lines and brought back the wounded and dead.
One day, he would carry artillery shells, the next shovels and picks and barbed wire. Each time he returned, he carried the butcher's bill of one of the most horrific wars ever seen on this planet. Battlefield casualties weren't counted in the hundreds but in the thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. In some long, pitched battles, a million men may have ended up wounded, shattered, dead over five miles of broken, useless terrain.
He told me of the gas attacks and how he was ordered to put gas masks on the mules first and then himself. He spoke of seeing a long line of men marching back from the front, shuffling along, each holding on to the coat of the man in front of them, blind mice with blistered skin and chlorine burned eyes. Of how helpless he felt, how he stopped the wagon and broke open a case of Ivory soap and started giving it to the men. Perhaps they could wash away the burns and chlorine and dirt, alleviate some of the pain, maybe he could help in some small way.
He knew men from his town who came back from the front with broken bodies, missing limbs or shattered deep down inside where only nightmares lived. And he knew men who never, ever came back.
And then, Armistice, signed on this day, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. And he was to return home, to leave the charnal houses of France and Belgium.
The mules were to leave by train, their services never to be needed again. The men would march back to the ships. As he loaded his mules, Jaques spooked and fought the line. The mule's hoof came down and crushed Arthur's foot. The mule was loaded by others as my great grandfather crawled away in pain.
In the distance, he saw the line of men assembling for the march to the ships and the ride home. In the other direction was the hospital where the basket cases were, so called because they had lost their legs and arms and had to be carried in baskets by the orderlies. There lay healing for his foot, the horrors of those who would always be wounded and a delay in getting home.
Arthur reached down and grabbed the laces of his boot and pulled them tight, unimaginably tight, forcing the bones in his foot back together as best he could.
He marched to the ships, ten agonizing miles on a foot that I can never remember seeing bare in my young life. He boarded the ship and came home, came back for me and mine.
I miss him to this day and carry his pocketknife each and every day of my life. He was a strong man and a straightforward one, loving and sure, and he served when he was called upon.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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The US Army National Guard 744th out of Hillsborough, NH. This unit has served their time including vetrans from Vietnam and Desert Storm. The 744 served with distinction and honor in Desert Storm losing only two soldiers during their entire time in the desert. My best friend/brother is in this unit and soon I will be too. In December these men will be leaving for Iraq and I will be leaving for training right behind them to meet over there in the spring. I wish these brave men good luck in Iraq and ask that they hold tight till I get there:)
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Lt. Laura Piper was killed when the HH-60 Blackhawk she was riding in was struck over the Northern No-Fly zone of Iraq by a missle launched by an F-15 from her fiance's squadron.
Lt. Paul Ziemba died when the B-1 he was piloting over West Texas struck a bird at low level ( less than 200') and high speed (greater than 500 kts). He likely never knew what went wrong.
Capt. Gregg Lewis, was hovering at night in a UH-60 Black Hawk during a Red Flag excercise in Nevada when either he or his wingman suddenly took evasive action as they were targeted by an aggressor. They collided and all on both aircraft were killed.
Maj. Gregg Fritz was killed when his C-130 went down in Florida. I don't know the circumstances of the crash.
Capt. Rob Lopez was killed in an A-10 on a training mission in Germany. again, I don't know the circumstances.
Capt. Kim Harmon died when the C-130 she was navigating struck a mountain trying to land in Montana in support of President Clinton's re-election campaign of 1996.
Capt. Greg Cindrich was killed in C-141 a freak mid-air collision over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, delivering humanitarian supplies to Africa.
I knew all of them. They were my college classmates. Some of them I went through basic training with. Some of them trained me. Some of them I trained. Some of them left behind spouses and children. Some didn't. They were all among the finest people I have eveer met, and I would have told you so before they died, had I the opportunity. Only one of them died in an actual war zone.
All who defend our country make great sacrifices, run great risks, and pay great prices.
Here's a toast to the host Of those who love The vastness off the sky
To a friend we send The message of The brotherhood who fly
We drink to those Who gave their all of old
Then down we roar To score the rainbow's pot of gold
Here's a toast to the host Of those we boast The US Air Force.
God bless all veterans, today and always.
[ November 11, 2003, 07:49 PM: Message edited by: T. Analog Kid ]
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Many, many thanks to all the Veterans of the past, those that are Veterans and are becoming Veterans today, and to all those that will be in the days to come.
Many, many thanks to the loved ones left behind that give their soldiers strength. The mothers, the fathers, the wives and the husbands, the children and friends... all those who change with the changes of the soldiers.
...On a more personal note... Thank you to my Uncle who faught in Vietnam, to my Grandfather who faught in WWII, and to my own loved one, Specialist Paul Jay of the 101st Airborne, who is currently deployed.
...And, strange as it may seem, thank you everyone. For being someone whose freedom and life and liberty are worth fighting for. You give our soldiers hope.
Posts: 1548 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I take Nathan every year to our services in the state capitol, whether it's nice or nasty out. We made quite a pair this year coughing and snuffling through the service. For the first time, we skipped looking around at all the memorials and talking about what they mean - every year the conversation goes a little further and the questions get a little deeper and more difficult to answer.
We decorate Grandpas's grave every year on this day (and at other times as well). Grandpa was a 'Nam vet - and while he came back mostly physically whole from the experience (hearing loss from artillery), the "hidden" scars eventually killed him. Scars that I knew nothing about up until a month before he died. Nathan and I miss him - terribly - and I can't imagine what it must be like for families of military personnel over in Iraq right now. Blessings to all.
Sopwith - thank you for the story and reminding us of how Armistice Day started and what it originally commemorated. Poignant.
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I want to add my own thanks to the veterans of this country (albeit belated).
To my father, who right out of high school, signed up with the Marines and went to Vietnam for two tours. I still don't know how those years affected him. He rarely, if ever, talks about those times. When he does, they are just bits and pieces. Now that I am older, I wish I knew my dad before he went there. How he was when he was a boy. He is my father, and I love him. I am grateful that he came home when so many others did not.
Posts: 822 | Registered: Jul 2001
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My Grandfather, Ret. Lt. Col. Joseph David Macklin. He may not be dead, yet, but he's lost enough of his mind to not know family. *sigh* Memory is such a luxury, yet we all take it for granted. I say this thanks, not in memory of veterans past, but for the knowledge of those to remember. I may disagree with war, which spawns veterans, but I thank those who, undoubtedly, have made me who I am. For those who "kept us from speaking [enter language here]". While I don't believe in dying for one's country, I do believe in the idea of choice. I thank those who made the choice to lead, not those who made the choice to follow. My grandfather lives, alone, in a three story house in the Pacific Northwest, and he's fallen further into depression than I've ever seen anyone. You know what he attributes it to? Seeing the country he KILLED for "go to waste".
I may not agree with our government. Hell, I may not be proud to be an American. That doesn't change the fact that I love my Grandfather. My Grandfather is a veteran.
Posts: 677 | Registered: Sep 2003
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TAK forgot to mention another of his schoolmates, Capt "Skip" Rodgers, whose E-3 aircraft crashed on takeoff due to a bird strike in Anchorage AK, killing him and his crew.
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