Vets Day

[drbassman]

I just wanted to express my appreciation and admiration for all of our vets, inside and outside this forum.  I think of my father whenever this day rolls around.  He was one of the most selfless members of a generation that held duty to country and family above everything else, including themselves. We are all blessed by the labors of such wonderful people.  Thank you veterans for your service and sacrifice.

[OldManC]

Aye. Thanks to everyone who serves and served.

[Chaser001]

I express my admiration for the veterans.  This especially applies to my father.  It's extremely doubtful I'll ever be able to top his accomplishment of fighting in the battle of Guadalcanal. 

[Denis]

Happy Veteran's Day to everyone who served, especially my Dad, who served in Vietnam 1969/1970 and came back.

[Highlander]

... at the going down of the sun...

Rememberance Day on our side of the pond...

[Barklessdog]

I thought of my father this morning. Thank you all for your sacrifices.

[drbassman]

For sure guys!  We have our freedom because of our vets.

[uwe]

"We have our freedom because of our vets."

With all due repect: You guys would still be free even without your past overseas engagements. The US is not conquerable, period, for myriads of reasons and no country in the world has ever seriously tried it nor had the military and logistic means to.

But you can pride yourself of something else and honor your fathers and grandfathers for it:

"Europe has its freedom because of our vets."

That is 100% correct and a jewel in your crown! (Actually an even larger one than fighting for your own country's freedom.)

Uwe

[Denis]

Last night I heard a fascinating interview with a guy who was born in Germany, was taken to the US as a child, but moved back to Germany in the 1930s where he was eventually conscripted into the Hitler Youth. When he turned 16 he was drafted and became a medic in the German Army in Italy. He never told any of his fellow soldiers he was born in the US.

He was taken prisoner and interrogated by a US Army officer fluent in German. That officer (if I remember correctly) helped him get back into the US. When the Korean conflict broke out he tried to join the Marines, who wouldn't have him because he'd served in the German Army. The US Army took him as a medic, though, and he served through the rest of the conflict.

He's in his 80s now and lives with his wife in a house he built with his own hands.

I found this story fascinating on so many levels.

[uwe]

He was smart not to tell. Not becaue they would have shot him, they wouldn't have cared, but they would have most likely stuck him into a captured US Army Uniform and transferred him to that outfit of German-Americans they sent in US uniforms over the Allied lines at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 to disorient, sabotage and spy. And like all the others he would have been inevitably captured (unless he was smart enough to immediately surrender himself) and then summarily shot in his fraudulent American uniform by regular US troops - perfectly in line with the Hague Covention according to which he would not have had combatant status. That would have been real irony.

[nofi]

thanks to my dad for making it through ww2 and still being here today. he served in both europe and the pacific.

[jumbodbassman]

they are all the real heros....

[eb2]

I and my kids gave thanks to my dad.  When his dad died he was 14, and quit school to support his family as a welder.  When he joined the Navy at 17 he became a ships fitter (welder) and spent the rest of the war welding and on occasion trying to flush pesky Jap soldiers out of caves and such, as they had a problem surrendering.  He finished school on the GI Bill and hasn't welded anything since.  Now he watches football and sometimes tells people that Drew Bledsoe was better than Tom Brady.