Quiet Clay

Jonn writes; I’m out for the weekend to a family event, so Stu offers this in my stead;

This could be more for my own personal good than the good of anyone else, and it is not intended to be a history lesson or a political statement, but sometimes you got to do something to get things off your mind.

Sometimes when I get all rung out reading and keeping up on the issues and events happening with or to my fellow Veterans I have to stop and read the attached article from the Stars and Stripes that was printed just before I returned from Iraq in 06. It never fails to bring tears to my eyes and re-enforce my feeling that Veterans are a special class of people and makes me grateful that so many men and women continue to serve, and that I was given the privilege to serve with some of the finest Soldiers.

Who else would actually volunteer for service that could lead to the outcome detailed in the article by COL Frank? A subculture that values those three sacred words, DUTY-HONOR-COUNTRY (General Douglas MacArthur at West Point on 12 May 1962) a subculture that would rather give their own life so that others they don’t even know can sleep safe in their beds at night, or hang out at the mall on texting on the latest cell phone thing. We are a group of people who would rather die than surrender their belief in the principles of freedom, our form of government, and commitment to their fellow service members.

There is the problem in my eyes with some of the MSM today. Seems every story if it involves someone doing something bad the speculation begins, was the suspect a Veteran? Then the wild guesses about PTSD, and they must be damaged goods turned loose on the public by the military, even before the facts are in. Standard policy seems to be blame first and retract or just forget it was said later on when it comes out they weren’t. I don’t see many if any in the MSM taking “our” side. Maybe if a few of them had actually served instead of watched it on TV they would understand, nope, don’t think so, they just ain’t wired that way I guess.

Let’s face it, they (civilians, military family members excluded) don’t understand us, and we scare them. They can’t get a grasp on the commitment and sacrifice that a service member makes, and what our “work” environment has the potential to be. We speak a different dialect. When a few of us get together even though complete strangers we can be laughing and talking like long lost friends in mere minutes, and moments later crying together over the fallen.

Some of us have tattoos of scary stuff, some dealing with dark or morbid images and the names of the fallen and dates and times they think we should want to forget, yet we chose to remember, and refuse to forget. We get upset because someone wears some little piece of cloth or ribbon with a metal trinket one the end in funny shapes they bought at a pawn shop or surplus store. We put things like SGT, MSG, CPT, and (Ret) and such behind our names like it is some sort of college thing or something. Yep, after a decade of conflict one would think “they” would catch on, but that saying I seen some years ago is true.

The Marines are at war, America is at the mall.

Stu

Quiet Clay

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