Veteran's Day

My post yesterday dealt with veteran's on a broader scale, and three in particular that didn't make it home. Today, I would like to talk about a veteran that I know personally.

My father was a Sgt. in the United Sates Army. (Honestly I might be off by a rank.) He spent a total of 14 years in the military. The earlier years of his enlistment I have no real recollection of, being as that I wasn't born yet. I know that he spent time overseas before my birth, in Korea sometime in the '80s. I was born in Ft. Polk Louisiana in 1985, but shortly thereafter we left for Birmingham Alabama. There my father took a few years stint as a recruiter. After a few years there, he transferred to the 1st Cavalry Division based out of Ft. Hood Texas.

At this point his MOS (military occupation specialization) was as the commander of a Bradley fighting vehicle. Named after Omar Bradley, the famous general. My fondest memories of that time period involved the military in some way, shape, or form. There was the PX and the commissary (basically a wal-mart and grocery store) where I would sit and guard the cart like a little soldier while my parents picked out the best cuts of meat. "Hut two three four!" and turn around, "Hut two three four!" and turn around.

Then there were the endless barbecues and cook outs with other military families, Easter egg hunts. Family days on base where you would be able to sit in Apache attack helicopters, or crawl inside of Chinooks and C-130's. Some times you could even take rides in tanks to different areas of the base. From as young as I can remember I was enthralled with the life of the military. Take Your Son to Work days were a special treat, seeing your father in the day to day, from making sure you don't walk on the grass or to the virtual simulators. For Halloween I always had a great costume, just take his BDU's (his camo fatigues) and a ton of safety pins to make them fit and you're off. Add a smidgen of blood and you're a zombie soldier.

There was a fair share of sadness also. Every so often my father would have to go to "the field" for a week to practice making war. He would pack up his duffel bag and I would ponder whether or not I could climb in there without him knowing until it was too late. I never tried, because by the time he left it was stacked to the brim. As he was gone, you could hear the sounds outside at times. The rattle of a machine gun or the boom of a cannon. Unlike my girlfriend, who lived where those sounds inspired fear, to me it inspired awe.

In the lead up to the Gulf War we found out that him going to the field for a week was light work. It wasn't long before we were notified that he would be deployed to Kuwait. When the day finally came we watched them line up on buses. I was standing there, not more than 5 or 6, waving an American flag as he boarded the bus. I was singing the song, "And I'm Proud to be an American" and tears were unchecked as they flowed down my face and the face of my family. When he got on the bus, he pressed his hand against the window. That memory sticks with me, my father's hand outlined on the dark glass of the window, bright white from the pressure he was exerting, as the buses rolled away.

We went home and began tying yellow ribbons on a maple tree outside of our house. A large one around the trunk, and smaller ones on the branches as time went on. From then on it was the news, the signature bright green flashes of gun fire above Baghdad from the nightvision cameras. birthdays and holidays went by. Every so often we would get letters, or the bright yellow cards with writing on the back. I will always remember the beautiful cursive that my father wrote in, the long flowing script, with a left-handed slant. Sometimes a true gem would come, an audio tape. Or, like during Thanksgiving, the holy grail came. A video. "Happy Thanksgiving from the 1st Cav!" with a short 30 seconds or so of each man talking to his family. We watched, listened, and read all of those correspondences over and over.

My father came back after spending several months in Kuwait/Iraq. At the time he didn't really talk to me about his experiences (I was still very young). We went to pick him up and when the ceremony was done they cut the ribbon separating the families from the soldiers, and there was a rush of people trying to find their loved ones. My mother ran right past my father not recognizing him in full battle dress, and my brother had to point him out.

As I grew older, I began getting used to my father jumping at the sound of clattering pans and the other subtle differences you notice in people who have been to war. Only recently has he begun telling me stories of what happened while he was over there. Once I asked him how he knew who to shoot at...his reply, "Well son, I was on the front line as a scout. If they were in front of me, I knew they were bad guys." Other snippets include stories of people surrendering, walking for miles in the desert with shirts above their heads while my father watched them in a powerful scope.

Another funny story was one where he had crawled into a cave and found a brand new AK-47 under a mattress. Black and silver, he said it was beautiful. A lot of the guys were grabbing up AK's for souvenirs to take back home, he had some, and he knew a few of his men also had some. He wrapped his in black plastic and attached it to the inside of his Bradley with a warning tag, "High Pressure Line: Do Not Touch." It wasn't long before an order came down the line that everyone needed to get rid of them. My father threw his in a trash can and told his men, "This one is mine, and when I get back I expect this trash can to be full."

Then there were the smaller stories, such as us sending him a pair of clippers that he could use to cut guys hair in his unit. Sometimes, my father was in command of several Bradley Linebackers at once, so he had quite a few heads to trim.

To those who have others serving overseas I know the feeling of your absence and the meaning of this day to you. To those of you have served, I've never been there, so I won't try to say I understand, but I do appreciate it. Happy Veteran's Day!