Hi,

We took our family out to Texas De Brazil for our Veterans Day celebration. My Grandson was home on leave. At dinner he said the reason for becoming a Marine and joining military service was due to his father being a Marine and that I had been in the USAF. Brought a tear and proud moment to me. I also found out he is now attending college. I told him and his sister to get all the education they could while in service. Granddaughter graduated with a bachelors degree this past August. Sibling rivalry! She out ranks him now so he will do anything to out rank her.

My oldest Granddaughter is a Marine and serving in Spain on deployment. She is serving all over the world with her Logistics MOS and Hazmat training/certification. She's been told that being a officer was a open door. She likes her duties and wonders about becoming an officer. I've told her if she wants to make the Marines a career then being an Officer is a no brainer. Just more work to allow further advancement.

USA needs young people to serve too protect and preserve our constitution. Too many millennial are being led astray by academia and social media. Heck history is being mangled and no one really teaches civics any longer. It won't be long before libraries are destroyed or restrict anyone from being able to read written truth. Discernment is something that everyone should know/understand let alone read something for understanding period.
Yes, I am a supporter of President Trump and believe in defending our constitution and second amendment. Our 1st amendment allows us free speech but with responsibilities and respect, latter is lacking today but it too is taught by example.
I am thankful for my USAF training and veteran's benefits that provided me a great civilian career. Being a veteran opened a lot of doors for me.

@onebuck,

Hear, hear!

I'm thankful for my military experience, and in fact ALL of my life experiences, good and bad. In some countries, service is mandatory, I feel it might be helpful to have that in the US.

I appreciate all veterans, including those worldwide. Wars are not a good thing.

The sitting president is my Commander in Chief. Even though I've been out of uniform for over 30 years, this is still my stance. Whether or not I agree with their politics, if there's a call to arms, I'm available and the President is the top of my command structure.

I do see youth choosing military service, both temporary and long term. I'm proud of them, and appreciate their commitments and sacrifices. I don't see a ton of societal negative things, and certainly not like we had back in the 60's, but I would say that I'd be appalled if there were active protesters or naysayers against our service persons. Quite honestly, when I was in the service, there was still a countrywide negative stigma to it, and it was nearly universal. I'm glad that this has changed, sad that it seems that Gulf War 1, and 9/11 had to occur to cause this change.

To add to my earlier post, one brother was in the navy riding around on submarines, the other one is retired army keeping the vehicles running, he would probably would have made it 30 years if it wasn't for the fact they kept sending him back over to afganastan. My dad retired usmc, in 68 or 69 don't remember which delivered mail to the troops in vietnam

My father was in the French Foreign Legion. Does that count?

In my book it does

My father was taken prisoner in Normandy, then waited for the end of WWII in England. Never spoke much about the war and all insinuations concerned sad events. Coming home to a country where everybody was (quite suddenly) a resistance-fighter made him shut up once and for all. As regards “pride”, he used to say to those who complained about the losses, that “not starting a war in the first place might have been a good idea, too.”
As for his “war” experience, the only thing he ever mentioned as positive, was the way that the British handled their prisoners.

I feel that much of this man's strength and potential was wasted and closed away forever behind a wall of denial. I accuse Germany, the Nazis (old and current, German and other) and bloody politicians to have spoiled his life and will never forgive.

Michael - I survived the German Autobahn, too - Uplawski

4/31 Infantry, 2/5 Infantry..I had lots of fun, had lots of suck time..would do it all over again.

Another Hear hear!!!

Most definitely!

why not???
yanks are not the only ones allowed to have ve5terans.but i hate all war!!! people glorifying it in whatever way are evil.

Actually my father's experience was very similar to that of Michael's father. He had just completed his training when France capitulated and the legion was dissolved. They were all put into a labour camp and he spent most of the rest of the war building the Trans-Saharan Railway. It wasn't exactly a concentration camp but it wasn't an ordinary POW camp either and Geneva conventions didn't apply (probably because they had been handed over by the Vichy government rather than being taken prisoner). The work was hard and there was very little food.

In 1944 the camp was liberated by the Americans and the prisoners sent to Casablanca. From there he was taken to the UK by ship. My mother often told me that when she first saw him in London, he looked like a walking skeleton and was half blind from all the sand. Even so, he tried to join the British Army but of course he couldn't pass his medical, so he never got to fight in the end.

The only war I am a veteran of is the War of Ideas. I was hesitant to post here for that and because my celebration on every Veterans Day has always been very private, at least since my Dad died. He served as an engineer notably in The Battle of the Bulge and also was one of those young men who liberated two Death Camps. His stories chilled me to the bone but he had to live them, not once, but many times as he suffered from what is now called PTSD but was ignored or written off as "shell shock" in his time. We'd celebrate together often while he was alive. Since his death, on this day, I light a cigarette, take a deep drag and raise a glass of Jamesons and salute my Father. It's a hard day for me so I don't know if "celebrate" is the right word anymore but I solemnly do it out of respect and in his honor, knowing how hard it is for me is as nothing compared to what he went through in freezing foxholes and far worse. I wouldn't be here had he not survived. I probably wouldn't be free had he not fought and suffered so. I love my Dad.

well spoken.

My Dad and Uncles were WWII vets, they never talked about it. One uncle was supposedly on ships in the Pacific and dealt with Kamikaze attacks. He never talked about it. My Dad came to the US in the 30s as an orphan. According to family, his parents were killed by a political faction in Germany. I don't know and my Dad never talked to me about it. I was also told that he was under 10 when he came over. The most I got out of one of my uncles was, "Yeah ... we were all there. Count yourself lucky if you never have to experience something like that." Out of these four men, all had been in the Navy, all scattered around the world, that one uncle who talked the most, which was not much, reminisced a great deal the time I was in the Navy and corresponded with me a lot. My Dad had passed away years before. It was nice that my uncle opened up, to a degree, at least about military life.

I'm reminded of Tom Hanks' character in Saving Private Ryan. He went off one time because he was overcome with emotion and broke down. It was shown to be a very private moment, where he absolutely did not wish to be seen by the others.

Earlier in the movie, they told one young guy, the incorrect Ryan, about his brothers' deaths and the platoon leader gave him a shoulder to cry on. Meanwhile that platoon leader sharply looked up at everyone with a stern face as if saying, "Hey! Don't be lookin' at me like I'm some crybaby!!! I'm just consoling this kid!"

I believe a lot of that stuff was true. These men kept to their selves. One of my other uncles finally lost his wife, my aunt. They had been married for nearly 50 years and they all had grown up together in Boston, so in their 70s they had really known each other this long of a time. I could tell that it was the most difficult and terrible thing in his life, and I brought him back to his house. I could tell that he absolutely would not break down in front of another person. I had to both stay to make sure he was going to be OK, but also leave, to allow him to grieve. That was the mindset of people who were born in the teens and 20s.