Put On A Uniform
Mar 14, 2005 19:04:46 GMT -6
Post by Moderator on Mar 14, 2005 19:04:46 GMT -6
Put On A Uniform
By Jeff Seeber
I posted this on another board years ago in a discussion that was started by a high school senior who was arguing with his parents about whether he should enlist or not ...
------------------------------------------------------------
From time to time my keyboard demands that I start typing. This is one of those times. I'm 50-cough-something-year-old. I come from a long line of military. Several uncles saw combat in WW II. My father was Merchant Marine/Navy and saw a sister-ship sunk by a Nazi U-Boat with all hands lost.
My oldest brother was Army in the early stages of Vietnam. My older brother served 12 years in the Navy during and after Vietnam. I enlisted for 6 years in '69 and was medically discharged in late '70. I'm totally and permanently service-connected disabled.
I wrote all of that so I can write this. Those two years of my life were the scariest years of my life. They were the best years, too. The guys I knew that survived are the only life-long friends I have. Or want to have.
When you meet and then get to know other people who will take a bullet for you ... and you for them ... you learn what honor and respect and trust are all about. You will never experience such things in "civilian" life.
Those two years outweigh everything I did before or since. Those two years represent about 2% of my existence on this planet and yet they mean more to me than all of the events from the other 98% combined.
No job you will ever have as a civilian, except maybe a cop or a fireman or as an EMS, will match your experience serving in the Armed Forces. Military service is often described as months of boring, repetitive training punctuated by minutes or hours of terror and adrenaline that no words exist to adequately describe.
If you die as a result of your service, millions of people like me will remember you daily and honor your sacrifice. We'll help your family as best we can no matter what they thought of your service. If you get injured, wounded, disabled ... we'll be there for you as best we can. Others have been there for me for the last 34 years.
Whether you do two years or twenty years, the people you meet in the service ... any branch ... will be the people you remember the rest of your life. You can take that to the bank.
My father spent the last seven years of his life gradually wasting away, ravaged by Alzheimer's. Long after he forgot the names of his children and his wife and then his own name, he could remember his days in WWII. His last coherent sentences before he was forever silenced were about the second convoy he sailed from Norfolk to North Africa to re-supply Patton.
Some months ago, me and a few of my Vietnam-era buddies were sitting in the cafeteria at the Minneapolis VAMC having some coffee. A uniformed Marine walked up to our table. He looked to be about 22 years old, 25 tops.
Me and another guy wear baseball hats with the Navy seal and a FMF Corpsman logo. This wonderful "kid", someone I had never seen before and will likely never see again, dropped a $5-bill on the table and said, "I'd be honored to buy you guys coffee. Semper Fi and Welcome Home." He walked off, leaving four old guys speechless and on the verge of tears. Try and find that in the civilian world. I don't think you can. Hell, I know you can't.
If you want money, you can do better than serving in America's Military. If you want honor and the chance to liberate 50-million people, give or take a few camels and a handful of goats, then put on a uniform. If you want to find out what you are really capable of doing, put on a uniform. If you want camaraderie unavailable anywhere else, put on a uniform. If you want to wake up some morning when you're old and know you once did something that was important not only to yourself but to mankind at large, put on a uniform.
As far as what anyone else thinks, family or not, it won't make any difference when they're gone and it's just you and that mirror.
Despite all of the blood and destruction I saw, despite the deaths of buddies who never saw their twentieth birthdays, despite the physical pain I've put up with since then as a direct result of my service, I'd do it all again if I could. Because it matters. It mattered then and it matters now.
It's all about freedom. It's about sacrifice in the hope that maybe the next generation can go about their business without fear of having two towers fall into rubble in an American city. That matters. Put on a uniform.
By Jeff Seeber
I posted this on another board years ago in a discussion that was started by a high school senior who was arguing with his parents about whether he should enlist or not ...
------------------------------------------------------------
From time to time my keyboard demands that I start typing. This is one of those times. I'm 50-cough-something-year-old. I come from a long line of military. Several uncles saw combat in WW II. My father was Merchant Marine/Navy and saw a sister-ship sunk by a Nazi U-Boat with all hands lost.
My oldest brother was Army in the early stages of Vietnam. My older brother served 12 years in the Navy during and after Vietnam. I enlisted for 6 years in '69 and was medically discharged in late '70. I'm totally and permanently service-connected disabled.
I wrote all of that so I can write this. Those two years of my life were the scariest years of my life. They were the best years, too. The guys I knew that survived are the only life-long friends I have. Or want to have.
When you meet and then get to know other people who will take a bullet for you ... and you for them ... you learn what honor and respect and trust are all about. You will never experience such things in "civilian" life.
Those two years outweigh everything I did before or since. Those two years represent about 2% of my existence on this planet and yet they mean more to me than all of the events from the other 98% combined.
No job you will ever have as a civilian, except maybe a cop or a fireman or as an EMS, will match your experience serving in the Armed Forces. Military service is often described as months of boring, repetitive training punctuated by minutes or hours of terror and adrenaline that no words exist to adequately describe.
If you die as a result of your service, millions of people like me will remember you daily and honor your sacrifice. We'll help your family as best we can no matter what they thought of your service. If you get injured, wounded, disabled ... we'll be there for you as best we can. Others have been there for me for the last 34 years.
Whether you do two years or twenty years, the people you meet in the service ... any branch ... will be the people you remember the rest of your life. You can take that to the bank.
My father spent the last seven years of his life gradually wasting away, ravaged by Alzheimer's. Long after he forgot the names of his children and his wife and then his own name, he could remember his days in WWII. His last coherent sentences before he was forever silenced were about the second convoy he sailed from Norfolk to North Africa to re-supply Patton.
Some months ago, me and a few of my Vietnam-era buddies were sitting in the cafeteria at the Minneapolis VAMC having some coffee. A uniformed Marine walked up to our table. He looked to be about 22 years old, 25 tops.
Me and another guy wear baseball hats with the Navy seal and a FMF Corpsman logo. This wonderful "kid", someone I had never seen before and will likely never see again, dropped a $5-bill on the table and said, "I'd be honored to buy you guys coffee. Semper Fi and Welcome Home." He walked off, leaving four old guys speechless and on the verge of tears. Try and find that in the civilian world. I don't think you can. Hell, I know you can't.
If you want money, you can do better than serving in America's Military. If you want honor and the chance to liberate 50-million people, give or take a few camels and a handful of goats, then put on a uniform. If you want to find out what you are really capable of doing, put on a uniform. If you want camaraderie unavailable anywhere else, put on a uniform. If you want to wake up some morning when you're old and know you once did something that was important not only to yourself but to mankind at large, put on a uniform.
As far as what anyone else thinks, family or not, it won't make any difference when they're gone and it's just you and that mirror.
Despite all of the blood and destruction I saw, despite the deaths of buddies who never saw their twentieth birthdays, despite the physical pain I've put up with since then as a direct result of my service, I'd do it all again if I could. Because it matters. It mattered then and it matters now.
It's all about freedom. It's about sacrifice in the hope that maybe the next generation can go about their business without fear of having two towers fall into rubble in an American city. That matters. Put on a uniform.