VETS

[Hoko]

/salute

[shinyribs]

Nice post Hoko,and agreed:Thanks to all who served or are currently serving. Much respect.  

[Truck]

I saw combat in the Marines, and was a firefighter for 10 years and saw/went through some bad stuff, but I cannot fathom the size of the brass balls these guys had to have to step off of those transports. I will forever show respect to any of them that I meet.

[Re-run]

It sure was a different time then. I read this book called Pacific War Diary. Written by a sailor in WW2. It was his diary he kept during his time on the ship as he went around the South Pacific. It was crazy stuff. things that they did. Things that just randomly happened.

[Hoko]

The same year I signed up for the Vietnam draft, they ended it, so I was never in the armed forces but my Dad was a WW2 Pacific Navy vet so I grew up greatly respecting those men.  I have a friend, her Dad went through Guadalcanal, I told her it was a miracle anyone survived that.  She accompanied him to the Pearl Harbor reunion several times, she said it was a moving scene to see them and hear the stories.  One of my customers was an old WW2 vet and he was telling me some stories about combat on those islands about the time we took Iwo Jima.  His wife saw him talking to me in the front yard and later she asked what we were talking about.  I told her and she said "Yep, it's his favorite thing to talk about."

[biker_pastor]

Thanks Hoko, Nice post.

GSM1 (SW) USN Retired

[Truck]

When I was stationed in Okinawa I had the privelege to escort a group of WWII vets to Iwo Jima and go up Mt. Suribachi.  It was amazing to listen to what happened to them that day and it gave me an even greater respect for the shoes I was filling as a Marine. I will be forever greatful to those men and the history they intrusted with me. I don't care if you carry a rifle, fly a plane  or push a pencil, when you stand and say that oath, regardless of branch, you become one of the greatest this contry has to offer.