It’s a pity that the Veteran’s Administration is so poorly following Lincoln’s words; “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”
The men and a few of the women in my family are veterans. We serve when the nation calls. My uncles (dad’s side) fought in WWII. One was a P-51 pilot in Europe, one was with Patton from Normandy until his unit liberated the Buchenwald death camp. A third (mom’s side) was killed as a Marine in the Pacific on Saipan. My dad fought in the Korean War with the 101st Airborne. Mom was a nurse in Pusan during that war (they met at home after the war). My brother and myself served in Vietnam and my last battle was Desert Storm.
It’s not a glamorous life. My brother and me were called baby killers and I was spat upon when we returned to the US at the San Francisco airport. As a result I spent that night in jail (I knocked the jerk out) until a veteran judge turned me loose. We were unusual as brothers in the same theater of combat, but I was a marine and he was army and we were in-country at different times.
Dad and mom’s war was mostly forgotten. My uncle who liberated Buchenwald was haunted for the rest of his life by what he saw there. The pilot uncle would not fly the rest of his life. The last plane (he got three) he shot down was a JU-88 and he saw the crew die when they bailed out and their chutes did not open except for one man, whose chute opened but was on fire. My uncle war ready to use his guns as a mercy killing, but he didn’t have to. The man took out his pistol and shot himself rather than face a drop to his death. When the media showed the pictures of the people jumping to their deaths from the towers on 9/11/2001, he saw it on the news and had a heart attack and died, remembering the crew of the JU-88.
It’s a pity that the Veteran’s Administration is so poorly following Lincoln’s words; “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”
The men and a few of the women in my family are veterans. We serve when the nation calls. My uncles (dad’s side) fought in WWII. One was a P-51 pilot in Europe, one was with Patton from Normandy until his unit liberated the Buchenwald death camp. A third (mom’s side) was killed as a Marine in the Pacific on Saipan. My dad fought in the Korean War with the 101st Airborne. Mom was a nurse in Pusan during that war (they met at home after the war). My brother and myself served in Vietnam and my last battle was Desert Storm.
It’s not a glamorous life. My brother and me were called baby killers and I was spat upon when we returned to the US at the San Francisco airport. As a result I spent that night in jail (I knocked the jerk out) until a veteran judge turned me loose. We were unusual as brothers in the same theater of combat, but I was a marine and he was army and we were in-country at different times.
Dad and mom’s war was mostly forgotten. My uncle who liberated Buchenwald was haunted for the rest of his life by what he saw there. The pilot uncle would not fly the rest of his life. The last plane (he got three) he shot down was a JU-88 and he saw the crew die when they bailed out and their chutes did not open except for one man, whose chute opened but was on fire. My uncle war ready to use his guns as a mercy killing, but he didn’t have to. The man took out his pistol and shot himself rather than face a drop to his death. When the media showed the pictures of the people jumping to their deaths from the towers on 9/11/2001, he saw it on the news and had a heart attack and died, remembering the crew of the JU-88.