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Memorial Day
By Mac McBride


Once again,Memorial Day is here,a day to Honor and remember the thousands who fell so you can enjoy the freedom of everyday life,and live it in your own way.

Your freedom came from someone in the desert sand, mangled and torn by the anti-personal mine they had just stepped on, someone laying in the putrid water of a rice paddy watching the blood flow from his chest, and felt life leaving him not knowing where the snipers bullet had come from. A ground to air missile sends a burning jet and its pilot to the frozen ground below. Early one morning, a bomb sinks a ship to the bottom of a harbor, trapped in the torn metal someone drowns.

The battle goes on for some years after the last round is fired. Hundreds of Veterans die from chemicals sprayed over a jungle, some take their own lives because of the horror their eyes have seen, and their minds will not let them forget, others pass away in their sleep locking away forever the memory of maybe if they had just been a little braver would their friend still be alive.

On Memorial Day a small flag is placed on headstones all across this country. All these headstones have a name, and below each name may be letters like, MOH, DSC, SS, ACM, and PH.
These letters tell a story about the fallen, and the price they paid for the living. The letters are for Valor awards, and Purple Hearts, from blood shed.

Please don't let Memorial Day just be another day off of work or school, take a few minutes of your time and visit a cemetery, find a stone with a little American flag, stop for awhile and just say thanks, and maybe leave a rose.

It doesn't matter if you don't know the person there, he knew you, and the price he had to pay for you to stand by his stone-------and feel freedom.

We were called---and we went--
Poem Copyright Mac
173rd Abn Bde
Vietnam 68-69





A TRUE FRIEND

Horror gripped the heart of the soldier as he saw his lifelong friend fall in battle. Caught in a trench with continuous gunfire whizzing over his head, the soldier asked his lieutenant if he might go out into the "No Man's Land" between the trenches to bring his fallen comrade back."You can go," said the lieutenant, "but I don't think it will be worth it. Your friend is probably dead and you may throw your own life away." The lieutenant's words didn't matter, and the soldier went anyway. Miraculously he managed to reach his friend, hoist him onto his shoulder, and bring him back to their company's trench. As the two of them tumbled in together to the bottom of the trench, the officer checked the wounded soldier, then looked kindly at his friend. "I told you it wouldn't be worth it," he said."Your friend is dead, and you are mortally wounded." "It was worth it, though, Sir," the soldier said."How do you mean, 'worth it?'" responded the Lieutenant. "Your friend is dead!"
"Yes, Sir," the private answered. "But it was worth it because when I got to him, he was still alive, and I had the satisfaction of hearing him say, 'Jim, I knew you'd come.'"

~ Author Unknown ~



Image by Steve Quigley


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