Thank You For Your Service

Chosin. Marne. Khe Sanh. Tet. Ramadi. Anbar Province. Pearl Harbor. Belleau Wood. Bataan. Auschwitz. Nanking. Dresden. Nagasaki. Hiroshima. Leyte Gulf. Mekong Delta. Kirkuk. Baghdad. Countless places of the past, countless places of the present. Guantanamo. Hanoi. Grenada. All places where United States soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guardsmen and women have been detailed for various reasons, from support to front-line defenders. Many did not return from a detail, whether the first detail or the last of many. Many more returned mangled, crippled, forever living within a shell where there is safety. Many went under protest, but went anyway. Some went with vengeance, to repay presumed debts long past. Many went, followed their orders, survived, and just kept going, never returning. Iwo Jima. Battle of the Bulge. Haditha.

Many more never left the States, or if they did leave the States, never saw front-line action, serving instead as supporters of whatever cause was on hand as clerks, radiomen, crypies, corpsmen, aircrews, refuellers, loaders, construction engineers, convoy drivers, instructors, mentors, chaplains.

As John Prine once penned in a song, all the places were "foreign to my body, foreign to my shore," and yet when the need was great, when the task at hand was seemingly insurmountable, the volunteers just kept on coming. The pride, for the most part, was too strong to deny.

Sometimes to write of this eventful day of remembrance is a task I hope not to suffer, yet, to not write of it, however simple or nondescript would be a shame on my part. Therefore.

To all you ladies and gentlemen who have gone before me, with me, or who follow me in service to the greatest country in the world, officers and enlisted, active duty and reserve, support personnel or front line defenders, I can only say Thank You For Your Service. Thank you for standing tall, for representing this country in those foreign countries, for sailing the open oceans with no horizons in sight for days on end, for flying through hostile skies, for continuing to support my country as a safer place to live, a place of peaceful refuge.

Thank You!