Veteran's Day Reflections

Adapted from author: Nelson DeMille 

"Our country is filled with monuments to the men and women of the armed forces who served and who gave their lives. There is a monument in Arlington to the Unknown Soldier who represents all of the unidentified dead. There are and have been parades and special days set aside for the armed forces. But, for the dead, disabled, and discharged #veterans of the "secret war" there have been only private memorials in the lobbies or gardens of a few nonpublic buildings.

It is time to erect a public monument in the Mall; a tribute to the Cold Warriors who served and who got burned-out; whose marriages went to hell; who got shafted in bureaucratic shuffling and who died physically, mentally and sometimes spiritually. The exact nature of this monument escapes but it could be as a huge hole in the middle of the Mall, sort of a vortex, with a perpetual fog rising from the bottom, and if there is to be any inscription at all, it should read:

"Dedicated to the Cold Warriors, 1945-1989? THANKS."

This war ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper, and the transition from war to peace was mostly quiet and unremarked. There was no cohesiveness among the Cold Warriors, no sense of victory, no pomp and ceremony as divisions were deactivated; ships decommissioned; bomber squadrons put out into the desert. There was just a fading away; a piece of paper; maybe a check in the mail. In fact no one in Washington, nor anywhere, even said thank you."

EPILOG

Our returning armed forces bore the brunt and were the focus of protestors objecting to our nation's foreign policies. It was due to this domestic turmoil that when honorably discharged, many were "advised" to travel home in "civies." When they did finally resume their education or return to careers interupted, many were hesitant to disclose where they had been or what they had been doing for the previous four years.

Sad! Very Sad! They may have left their uniforms and their dignity behind... But they buried their pride deep inside where it could remain inviolate. The gratitude of our nation has yet to define the reality of our: "Cold Warriors."
Life has many itches...some should be scratched. Others? Not so much!

ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE FOR BABY BOOMERS!

ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE FOR BABY #BOOMERS!

Kid Rock, in an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN stated, “I shake my finger at “The Boomers;” for the damage they have done.” Today’s headlines produce yet another deliberate defamation of Boomers: “Aging Boomers Strain Cities Built For The Young.” (Who built these cities?!!!)

Given the economic strife and the political turmoil that exist in our nation today, these types of headlines and scare tactics can lead to only one “final solution”...and it didn't turn out so very well the last time. Discriminatory and inflammatory headlines need to be addressed; they cannot be permitted to go unchallenged.

Over the past fifty years, boomers built this nation...they accepted the reigns and the responsibility from their parents who were known as “The Great Generation.” The infrastructure that we have today is a consequence of their blood, sweat and tears.

Boomers were also hustled off to fight for our nation…except that it wasn't by choice and they didn’t get to come home to parades of honor. When being discharged from active duty, we were “advised” to travel home in “civies” since our #servicemen were being spat upon by their own countrymen. And so we remained silent. When we did finally go to college, courtesy of a guilt laden GI Bill that was totally inadequate to the task, we realized that we were different from our classmates. We knew it...our lives had been permanently altered. We did our nation's bidding and our nation bid us adieu.

Now, in our senior years, Boomers and boomer #veterans are still being "figuratively" spat upon by a generation molded out of post revisionist history and selective amnesia. Boomers have permitted their “successors” to remain children well into adulthood and thus they lack the skill set and the accumulated wisdom necessary for benevolent despotism.

Those of us whose working lives are behind us find ourselves sinking in the mire of a wealth redistribution. Boomers continue to “give” all that they have worked their entire lives to secure, while that with which they are left is being taken from them.

Boomers should be known as “The Generous Generation.” Their greatest mistake was their magnanimity of prematurely passing on the reigns to “The Greedy Generation or The Entitled Generation”

(What else didn’t you like about the play Mrs. Lincoln?)

TREACHEROUS SEAS

I woke up this morning (sounds like a B.B. King song) after one of my recurring #NAVY dreams...being back in the frozen arctic and north seas on an aging and creaking guided missile cruiser while escorting the Soviet NAVY back home at the end of the Cuban Missile crisis. The turbulent seas were tossing us around like a telephone pole at the Scottish highland games. Our two cats, Mork and Mindy decided that I deserved breakfast in bed as they presented me with their freshly caught Gecko du jour. What? No coffee?

A German soldier in occupied France had just "possessed" a French woman in the nicest of all possible ways. While pulling up his trousers, he said to her, "in nine months you vil haf a baby...you can call him Fritz if you like. She replied, (in the nicest of all possible ways) "in two weeks you vil have a rash...you can call it Measles if you like."

Wait; Wait...It Gets Better:

Our government: "of the people, for the people and by the people" has shut down. (Must be a rash! Or...a rash of closures) 

Let's Seeeeeeeeeeee.

Government...People....Of...For...By... I must be missing something. If the government has shut down, then one would logically conclude that we, the people must have been shut down. I don't know about you, but I don't feel shut down...all of my systems seem to be functioning properly...especially after my breakfast of Gecko Tartar. Maybe it's time for "the people" to demonstrate what a shutdown really looks like. How about a week long National Strike. Everybody take off at the same time...kind of like "The Blue Flu." (You can call it Measles if you like)

We the people, having formed a less than perfect union, do now declare that we are sick...sick and tired of those people whom we have elected to represent our best interests but, like a rash, they have buried themselves deep in our most intimate of places where neither elections, Vladimir Putin (on the Ritz) nor talcum powder can shake off these pesky varmints.  Like genetically modified proteins, they remain immune to the very legislation that they enact. How about genetically modified legislators? Maybe they already are?

What do you get when you put nine justices together in the same room? Certainly not a supreme court. First of all, it's a rubber room where every logical conclusion bounces around like free radicals at a gay pride parade. Or...Neutrons at a heterosexual meltdown. (Apologies for the double mixed metaphors.) Secondly, these nine justices are not your warm and fuzzy family portrait of grandma and grandpa sittin' on the front porch chawin' bakkee and teaching the grand kids the finer points of a good arm fart. No, they're more like The Housewives of New Jersey on steroids...Combative and dysfunctional.

JFK Funeral White House Color Guard

JFK Funeral White House Color Guard

Out of hundreds of thousands of active military service personnel, the Navy assumed the role of honor since JFK had also served in the Navy. Our small group had been further honored by having been selected for the color guard detail at The White House. We spent the next few days preparing for our role in the nation's mourning process by industriously detailing our uniforms: metal buttons, belt buckles, pins, ribbons and making certain that our shoes reflected hours of rigorous spit shining. Our daily drills on the parade ground took on an intensity that was palpable. The intervening hours were passed with never ending inspections; this was not the time to be the only nail in a room full of hammers. There are many stories from that day and I have been fortunate to have reflected upon them with my "band of brothers" and fellow "Cold Warriors!

Adapted from author: Nelson DeMille

"Our country is filled with monuments to the men and women of the armed forces who served and who gave their lives. There is a monument in Arlington to the Unknown Soldier who represents all of the unidentified dead. There are and have been parades and special days set aside for the armed forces. But, for the dead, disabled, and discharged veterans of the "secret war" there have been only private memorials in the lobbies or gardens of a few nonpublic buildings.

It is time to erect a public monument in the Mall; a tribute to the Cold Warriors who served and who got burned-out; whose marriages went to hell; who got shafted in bureaucratic shuffling and who died physically, mentally and sometimes spiritually. The exact nature of this monument escapes but it could be as a huge hole in the middle of the Mall, sort of a vortex, with a perpetual fog rising from the bottom, and if there is to be any inscription at all, it should read:
"Dedicated to the Cold Warriors, 1945-1989? THANKS."

This war ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper, and the transition from war to peace was mostly quiet and unremarked. There was no cohesiveness among the Cold Warriors, no sense of victory, no pomp and ceremony as divisions were deactivated; ships decommissioned; bomber squadrons put out into the desert. There was just a fading away; a piece of paper; maybe a check in the mail. In fact no one in Washington, nor anywhere, even said thank you."

EPILOG

Our returning armed forces bore the brunt and were the focus of protestors objecting to our nation's foreign policies. It was due to this domestic turmoil that when honorably discharged, many were "advised" to travel home in "civies." When they did finally resume their education or return to careers interupted, many were hesitant to disclose where they had been or what they had been doing for the previous four years.

Sad! Very Sad! They may have left their uniforms and their dignity behind... But they buried their pride deep inside where it could remain inviolate. The gratitude of our nation has yet to define the reality of our: "Cold Warriors." 
Life has many itches...some should be scratched. Others? Not so much!

Audio/Video Editing & Production By: 

Paul Griffin (USN) (1962-1966) 
Naval School, Wash., DC
Warfare School, Dam Neck, VA
Enemy Tracking
Communications
Community Relations

Assigned: Commander Second Fleet-Staff

Serving: Admiral Kleber Masterson 
Commanding: NATO "Strike Force Atlantic"
Task: Contain The Soviet Fleet



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_e6ZmQdTZc