I'm the daughter of an Air Force pilot.
I'm the wife of a former Marine.
I'm the daughter-in-law of another former Marine.
I'm the sister-in-law of an Air Force veteran and of a man currently overseas.
Thank you, to all of them. And prayers for all fallen veterans on this day.
Links to visit:
from the Cabbage Patch
from As Cozy as Spring last year on this day
3 comments:
God bless our veterans. Happy Memorial Day!
I'm the daughter of an Army Air Corps radio repairman, the daughter-in-law of an Army man who got a citation for his siting device to better home in on buzz bombs and about to be the mother-in-law of a former army scout who served in Iraq. All of them served nobly, but none of them came out of the experience very pro-war. I think my parent's generation viewed the war as a necessary evil. However, neither my rabid Republican father nor my equally rabid Democratic father-in-law thought that the conflicts after WWII were a good idea. My father blamed it on the Democrats and said it was there way of keeping the economy afloat, my father-in-law saw it as the military industrialist complex, and didn't like LBJ. However, whether you think that the present conflicts, or even some in the past, were worthwhile, you have to be thankful for those who were willing to put their life on the line and their lives on hold in an effort to protect the rest of us.
After WWII returning GI's were well respected and got good benefits. Since then the benefits have been decreased and the respect has dwindled to nearly nothing. It's actually harder for vets to get jobs in places like the post office than for non-vets because the people doing the hiring are so afraid of PTSD. Whether you agree with the current conflict or not, we should be giving support and encouragement to the young people who are serving in our military and for those who have already finished their service as well. The people who are serving in infantry positions are not only in the most danger while they are in the military, but they have the most difficult time finding civilian employment once they are out, and the GI benefits don't begin to cover all of the costs of college (when you include living expenses)in our part of the country. There's the brutal truth for Memorial Day. So if you really want to honor our veterans, help a vet find a good job, give him a break on the rent, or just take him out to dinner and say thank you.
It's too late to say thank you too much of that World War II generation, but there are a lot of younger veterans from the Korean conflict era on who would welcome some appreciation and respect. My father and my father-in-law died years ago, but I certainly intend to say thank you to the one younger former solider I know.
Excuse the typo. That should have been soldier in the last paragraph.
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