Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for November 11, 2017

Veterans Day in the USA, Remembrance Day in Canada. Lest we forget.

A special thank you to all of those who have served our country in the past or present. God bless you and God bless America.

“If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.”

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.

How profound a statement from Arlo/Jimmy Johnson.

It’s almost as if we haven’t had a war since 1945…

My father’s mum was a lucky woman – she sent her three sons and a brother-in-law off to WWII, and all four came back. That didn’t happen very often.

My wife’s grandmother saw four sons go to WWII and one go to Korea. Miraculously, they all returned.

My father was part of the occupational force in Japan for two years after the war ended. He was there within weeks of the atomic attacks. He was meant to be part of the invasion force and probably would not have survived. As it was, he never saw battle. He came back unharmed physically, but what he saw during the occupation haunted him for the rest of his life. He passed in 2007 at the age of 83. I am still mourning.

In honour of all the Veterans everywhere:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow,

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly,

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow

Loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch: be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep

Though poppies grow in Flanders Fields.

USS Vandalia (IX-191)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaEven just after the war, there was heroism…

My kid brother, Timm, enlisted because he pulled #1 in the draft lottery (remember that?). He served in Germany where, as he put it, the Army got him off of pot and onto white wine. He died age 44 when smoking-related cancer spread to his brain. Still worth remembering even if he never went in-country.

In DUCK HUNT at the end, I always shot the dog snickering at me for all the ducks I missed.

I love Call of Duty!