Direction
Mooest
Old Moos
Moo to Me
Go to Diaryland
Sign My Guestbook!
Read My Profile
Rivers Point Webpage
Favorite URLs
Light a candle
<
My Trading Card
Pictures
The Family
More Furfamily pictures
Quizzes
Prince or Princess
Star Wars Test
100 Acre Wood Test
What Element am I
What Mythical Creature am I
Political Affiliation
Peanuts Character
Atlantian Duke
My Words
One Nation. . .
My Best Day
MY Journey
2002 Retrospection
Let There Be Peace
War Pictures
Best Stolen Stuff
Frodo Has Failed
Archived Pages
Entry 501-Present
Entry 401-500
Entry 301-400
Entry 201-300
Entry 101-200
Entry 1-100
Last Five Entries
Veteran's Day and an Etiquette Question
2003-03-20 - 1:03 p.m.
Support
Today has made me a bit nostalgic. I've been trying to figure out why I feel the way I do. I guess th ebest place to start is where it ususlly is.. at the beignning. My earliest memories were when I was about three years old. We were moving from Virginia Beach to our new home in Suffolk. As my parents and their friends moved all of the furniture and stuff out of the old house and loaded it into a huge truck (okay, huge to a three year old). We had at least two station wagons and countless cars filled to the brim with stuff. I sat in a car that belonged to the family friend with my precious gold fish in my lap. I rode all the way to the new place I'd never even laid eyes on, without a word; but looking up occasionally to see comforting eyes looking in the rear view mirror at me. I have no idea when my parents met these friends. They'd always been there. That's just the way it was back then. I remember many cookouts, barbeques and just getting together for coffee (or in those days, beer, wine and cigarettes). My dad and Carl would sit and swap stories of their days in the Navy and my mom and Louise would sit and talk about what it was like to be a navy wife even after they retired.
Then, when I was about six I watched the field across from our house grow houses almost overnight. One day, I was chasing a dog out of our yard (I didn't like dogs back then); and met a four year old boy named Mike. He calmly announced that the dog I was chasing wasn't my dog and his daddy was aboard a big ship. From that moment on, we were the best of friends. His father was in the Navy and his mother had just given birth to his little "16 year old brother". For all intents and purposes, this was a new family, trying hard to adjust to life as a military family and here was my family just newly retired from the same branch. In a way, my mother became her mother and a grandmother to her children. It's just what you did. You saw a need, and you helped. Pure and simple.
Her husband was stationed aboard the Kennedy and when it collided with Bellknap all those years ago, it was my father who went across the street and brought her and the boys over to our house to be with her (her family were all in Minnesota) while she waited for word. She sat in our living room and watched the tv, everyone in complete silence until we heard that everyone was fine, limping home, but doing fine. My mother taught her how to crochet, talked her into going back to school and getting her degree, babysat and just plain took an interest in their lives. It was the same way with the rest of the houses on the block.. they were all military families. Our house became the focal point around the holidays when they couldn't be with families or when there was a problem they couldn't solve without help. My father taught many of them about vehicle repair and when their husbands went to sea, it was my dad they called when something went "horribly wrong" in the house.
When one of them got out of the military and was killed while riding his motorcycle home, it was my mother who realized that everyone else had come home but him. It was my father and mother who went down to their house and sat with her when the police came to take her to the hospital (they did that back then). My mother hated motorcycles, but she was there. She didn't think she should be any where else.
My sister grew up and married a Navy man. Her son is now in the National Guard. It's the same with them. While growing up in our house we learned about supporting others in their time of need.
I'm sure you're wondering what all of this is about... well, it's about what being military is all about, at least in my family. Once you're a military family, I don't think it ever really goes away. You feel a closeness and a kinship with your fellow military families. There is just no other way to explain it. It's just what you do; if you can't go, you supply whatever you can however you can.
Twelve years ago, I stood on the steps of the Chesterfield County Courthouse with my parents at a war rally, feeling very awkward. I was about 20 years old and thought I knew about the world. This was dumb and would accomplish nothing. I watched my father standing proud with his hand over his heart as they spoke the Pledge of Allegiance. I saw the pride in his eyes as he tried to sing a song he'd never heard before but believed with all of his heart (Lee Greenwood's God Bless the U.S.A.). I saw the tears as he prayed for a quick resolution. It was that moment that I realized that while I'm an american, up til that point, I had taken it all for granted. As the next generation it was my turn to support our troops and their family. I realized that to do otherwise was making the 20 years my father spent in the Navy and all of the help and support they'd given up to that point was meaningless. I would not let it end with them.
I truthfully don't care if people believe that our Government has made the right decision. War is ugly, there's no doubt about it. But they didn't choose to go over there and be the world's policemen. They're over there because they have no choice; we have a choice now to support them and their families or to sit here and be ashamed of ourselves for not doing all we can.
When the towers went down, there were people lined up around the block to give blood. So many gave blood they had to be turned away and scheduled to come back later. People poured into ground zero to help find the hurt and the dead. People worked many many hours to rebuild the Pentagon and to find the bodies there too. People wanted to help.
This is no different. If it helps, tell yourself that you're doing it for the 3,000 that died on September 11, 2001 because you are. They were soldiers of a sort too. They were going about their lives doing what they were supposed to for their families, for themselves and for the economy. Whatever the reason is... just do it.
Please don't forget to answer my survey... it's research for a small business idea... all comments appreciated, no reasonable offer refused!!! It won't take five minutes, I PROMISE!
