[emc]

Just a quick note to veterans, both living and those passed on, to say thank you for your service to our country. Your contributions, large and small, have laid the groundwork for the freedoms that we enjoy today. This person at least, will never forget.

And for you Dad, thanks for the twenty years that you put in. I know that it wasn't always easy, but you stepped up and did what needed to be done.

emc

[foghornl]

A very heartfelt "THANK YOU!", and a big sweeping tip of the hat to all our veterans, both still with us, and those that have gone on to their reward in the next world.

Since the indoor range nearest to me does not allow rifles, after work tonight I will be taking my 1911-A1 and firing my salute to those that now serve, those that served in the past....Those that came home, those that came home lesser than when they went, and those that never returned to see their loved ones.

I cannot even begin to fully express my appreciation for those that serve/have served and paid the price to buy Freedom for us, and to guard Lady Liberty for the world, other than to once again say "THANK YOU!" and to offer my condolences to the families of those who lost loved ones at any time.

[Khornet]

is all I've got to say. US Navy 1981-1994.

VETERANS' DAY 2001

Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.
Siegfried Sassoon

In one of his short stories, Ernest Hemingway noted the demeanor of veterans when they encountered each other. Dropping their tough soldierly public face, he said they acknowledged to one another that they had been "badly, sickeningly frightened" all the time. They didn't so much describe their own particular battle experiences; instead they would simply mention the name of a place. Among those who had been there, Hemingway said, a simple name spoke volumes, and was greeted with silent understanding. I once asked a new patient, a man in his seventies, if he'd been in the service. Yes, he said, he'd been in the Army. I was sitting on a low stool, examining his feet, when I asked whether he'd been anywhere I might have heard about. He said yes, I might have heard of a place called Remagen. Absorbed in examining his feet, it was a few moments before I realized he'd fallen silent. Looking up, I saw him gazing away into a corner of the room, tears trickling from under his glasses.

This Veterans' Day, we should take a leaf from Hemingway's book. We don't need glorious speeches when simple names can say so much more. Repeat after me:

Tarawa. Belleau Wood. The Hurtgen Forest. Bataan. Devil's Den. Little Round Top. The Peach Orchard. The Sunken Road. The Wheat Field. Chosin Reservoir. Corregidor. Fredericksburg. Pickett's Charge. The Bulge. Inchon. Hue. Bloody Nose Ridge. Guadalcanal. Pusan. Yorktown. Trenton. The Wilderness. Cold Harbor. Khe Sanh. Chemin des Dames. Iwo Jima. Manassas. Okinawa. Bastogne. Petersburg. Peleliu. Omaha Beach. Utah Beach. Chateau-Thierry. St. Mihiel. The Argonne. Bougainville. Wake. Midway.

In the sky, and on the ocean, a thousand lonely places without names.


The sacrifices of our veterans didn't end when they took off the uniform. Throughout America are men with crippled gait or missing limbs. Others, though they seem to have come home intact, left something behind them on the battlefield. The shooting may have stopped for them, but the war never will. There is no way for us to pay them back in kind; the best we can ever do is to safeguard what they gave so much to win. We must never forget that freedom isn't free.

Michael R. Bowen M.D. continued on page 2






VETERANS DAY, 2001 page 2

For those who were there, the names tell more than we could ever comprehend. As for the rest of us, we who have never dreamed about clean sheets and dry socks, who have never worn the thousand-yard stare, who have never hit the dirt when the screen door slammed, who do not awaken at night in a cold sweat, who never watched a sunset wondering if it were our last, there are no words. We can only stand in humble silence, and take to heart the words of Siegfried Sassoon in the First World War:


You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.



Michael R. Bowen M.D.

[El Tejon]

To paraphrase Eric Arthur, most men sleep soundly in their beds because some men go out at night and do needful violence.

[TexVetDan]

"These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Thomas Paine

[Yanus]

Carl Sandburg. 1878–

Grass

PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

To all veterans, simply, Thank you!...............