Memorial Day.

Published May 25, 2020

1 Article; 631 Posts

I know this is off topic but please forgive me this once.

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I am a Veteran. This day is NOT for me.

We fought at Belleau Woods, Marne, The Argonne together. We suffered gas attacks. We charged machine gun emplacements. Living in trenches together. I came home, THEY did not.

We fought at Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, marched together at Bataan. We suffered bombardment at Corregidor. Fought naval battles at Leyte Gulf together. We stormed the the beaches of Normandy. Fought house to house in Salerno. Suffered thru the Ardennes. We laid seige to Berlin. I came home, THEY did not.

We cannot forget the Frozen Chosin Reservoir, so cold we froze and stacked the bodies. We attacked Heartbreak Ridge with all we had. The beaches of Inchon we crawled and walked across and fought over. We defended Porkchop Hill at night suffering machine gun fire and waves of attacks. We were eventually pushed back at Ka San by the KPA only for us to retake it. I came home, THEY did not.

Vietnam, what a time. An Loc, Hamburger Hill, the Tet Offensive, Pleiku, Saigon, Operation Toan Thong III. All places were both sides spilled blood. We were fighting a war most of us did not understand. But we did our duty. I came home, THEY did not.

The seemingly never ending war in Afghanistan. We fought in Kabul,the mountains of Tora Bora looking for Osama Bin Laden. The battle at Chora, Musa Qala amd many others. The IED attacks on our convoys. the fear of daily living, the fear that those we were training could and did turn against us and kill us in our own camps. I came home, THEY did not.

How can we forget Iraq? The cradle of so much of our religious history. Places with the names of Baghdad, where bombs were a daily reminder of our job. Basra, Falluja where so many Marines fought. Mosul against the insurgents. Ramadi, Sadr City. Places so foreign to us, yet we were there, we are there. bullets and bombs were our daily lives. I came home. THEY did not.

So many other battles in places long forgotten or names so hard to pronounce. Planes in the skies, tanks on the fields of battle. Artillery booming in the distance. Soldiers walking and running. Sleeping in holes in the ground or in bombed out building to palaces. We were there, we ARE there. I came home, THEY did not.

So this day is not about me, I have a day later in the year, no this day is about THEM. This day is not about me because I came home. No this day is about THEM, because they did not come home.

Remember THEM. Honor Them. Pray there will never be anymore of THEM. Pray for their families, for they did not come home to them. Always remember, we are who we are today, free people, because of THEM