Last week we had HBW, LH and the littlies with us.  The visit was so fun (marred only by MamaCharlie's severe cold and a little bit of snow on the day we were to take  "old Blue" out for a tire spin).  While he was here he received some really good career news which I will allow him or her to tell you about, and we had lots of good time to just talk. Watching my little people being parents is a remarkable thing...and I have a whole passle (SP?) of brilliant grandchildren.  I am a very lucky guy.  The whole experience reminded me of how I came to volunteer for Vietnam in the first place. 

I was sitting on my rack in Bad Kissingen, reading the Stars and Stripes.  There was a picture on the front page of the 1st Cav soldiers loading onto ships for the trip to Vietnam.  They went over in the summer of '65...this paper was from September or there abouts, so I don't remember why that picture was on that particular newspaper.  But I remember staring at the picture and noticing that one of the soldiers still had the old ammo pouches on his LBE, just like mine.  Then a lot of other things started jumping out at me...and it soaked in that these guys weren't actors in a John Wayne movie, they were GIs...just like me...they had the same gear...they carried the same duffle bags...they even looked like some of the guys in my platoon.  I suddenly felt connected to them in some strange way and felt that I should be there, too.  I looked at the picture and made up my mind...went downstairs to the Orderly Room and started my paperwork to request transfer to Vietnam.

I had the same feeling while Matt was here.  That connection.  The kids we see on the nightly news aren't a breed apart, they are our kids, our brothers, our fathers, our neighbors.  As much as I felt I knew that before, I had a re-awakening of it.  We owe them so much...we cannot start thinking of them as anything less than the greatest treasure this nation has.

Thanks guys, and gals, home soon trailing clouds of glory...you deserve it.