Sparrowhawk
12-03-02, 03:15 PM
Today as I went out to the mail box I found four checks there, one for each of my daughters going to College.
They were issued to them by the Veterans administration and are the benefits of the war I fought in 35 years ago.
I felt good, 35 years ago I was in a hospital in Chu Lai, south Vietnam. A group of us Marines had been drinking and we broke into the the Air force storage shed where they had camouflaged utilities.
Camouflaged utilities, like they really needed them back in the rear. But I remember that night very well. The beer and drinks the Marine jet pilot's had bought me at the Marine corps club. and as we made our way back to our hospital beds that storage shed was just sitting there, with no one around guarding it.
But As I reflected on those memories I realized it was all part of the big package. The fighting, the dying, the pain and sorrows. The joys of friendship you can only find in war was all there.
I would have never imagined I would live through the war and make it back home, and 35 years later I would have five daughters, going to college with the benefits I earned while patroling in the rice paddie fields of South East Asia, while being shot at and shooting back.
Was it all worht it, sometimes in the dark shadows of the night, I don't know. Sometimes like today, I feel good.
Today I feel good.
Semper Fi, Marines, my friends
we've all earned that title and I only wish some of you would have met those Marines that were at my side at that time so many years ago.
Cook
They were issued to them by the Veterans administration and are the benefits of the war I fought in 35 years ago.
I felt good, 35 years ago I was in a hospital in Chu Lai, south Vietnam. A group of us Marines had been drinking and we broke into the the Air force storage shed where they had camouflaged utilities.
Camouflaged utilities, like they really needed them back in the rear. But I remember that night very well. The beer and drinks the Marine jet pilot's had bought me at the Marine corps club. and as we made our way back to our hospital beds that storage shed was just sitting there, with no one around guarding it.
But As I reflected on those memories I realized it was all part of the big package. The fighting, the dying, the pain and sorrows. The joys of friendship you can only find in war was all there.
I would have never imagined I would live through the war and make it back home, and 35 years later I would have five daughters, going to college with the benefits I earned while patroling in the rice paddie fields of South East Asia, while being shot at and shooting back.
Was it all worht it, sometimes in the dark shadows of the night, I don't know. Sometimes like today, I feel good.
Today I feel good.
Semper Fi, Marines, my friends
we've all earned that title and I only wish some of you would have met those Marines that were at my side at that time so many years ago.
Cook