redelk
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Please... speak to the hand.
Posts: 3212
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posted December 25, 2002 03:14 PM
TO ALL THOSE THAT HAVE AND ARE SERVING OUR COUNTRY
'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE.
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.
I LOOKED ALL ABOUT, A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS, NOT EVEN A TREE.
NO STOCKING BY MANTLE, JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
AND ON THE WALL, PICTURES OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
WITH MEDALS AND BADGES, AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBERING THOUGHT CAME TO MY MIND.
FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT, SO DARK AND SO DREARY,
THE HOME OF A SOLDIER, NOW I COULD SEE CLEARLY.
THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING, SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE, THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.
WAS THIS THE HERO OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO, THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
I REALIZED THE FAMILIES THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.
SOON ROUND THE WORLD, THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS, LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.
I COULDN'T HELP WONDER HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
THE VERY THOUGHT BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES AND STARTED TO CRY.
THE SOLDIER AWAKENED AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
"SANTA DON'T CRY, THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE."
"I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD, MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS."
THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER AND SOON DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT, I CONTINUED TO WEEP.
I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS, SO SILENT AND STILL,
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED FROM THE COLD EVENING'S CHILL.
I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE ON THAT COLD, DARK NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR SO WILLING TO FIGHT.
THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE, WHISPERED,
"CARRY ON SANTA, IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE."
ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH, AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
"MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."
I was too young for Viet Nam and too old for the Gulf.
Yet, when I awoke this morning, I remembered those that have in the past and are currently spending their Christmas far away from their loved ones and sacrificing it all... just so I can hear they joyful screams of my grand daughter, as she opened her presents.
While I will always keep the men and women who are serving our great nation in my prayers, I also wish to thank each and every one of them for giving me the opportunity to enjoy one of life's greatest pleasures... FREEDOM.
May God bless and look over each and every one of you.
Thank you.
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There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.
-Ernest Hemingway
   
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KZZ1
Zone Head
"Show me whatcha workin with"
Posts: 908
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posted December 25, 2002 04:08 PM
Ex-Marine grunt...1980 to 1985. Semper Fi
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ZHooligan
Moderator
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posted December 25, 2002 09:20 PM
Thanks for posting this Elk.
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oldkawboy
Needs a job
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posted December 26, 2002 05:44 AM
Thanks Red...
Dan
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bagster
Zone Head
Posts: 630
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posted December 26, 2002 08:08 AM
 Edited By: bagster on 29 Dec 2002 21:11
red,
It was an honor to serve our country and its peoples freedoms.
Ex-Army Tanker... 1983 to 1987
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Quickwilly
Expert Class
Posts: 256
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posted December 26, 2002 01:42 PM
Thanks for the post Red.
former-Navy 1990-2000
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Right coast. Left coast. And all points between.
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rs
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posted December 26, 2002 01:56 PM
Thanks!
Navy 1983 - 2003
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beansbaxter
Needs a life
Posts: 5911
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posted December 26, 2002 04:36 PM
Enlisted in 1995, did Basic Training still when it was all male.
U.S. Army
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swft
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Full throttle!
Posts: One MEEEEEELLION
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posted December 26, 2002 05:28 PM
Yah, good post!
Navy 1979 - 1995 (Early Retire)
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Dino
Pro
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posted December 26, 2002 05:49 PM
Thanks Red.....Navy....1972-1976
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uh oh
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blubyu
Expert Class
Posts: 209
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posted December 26, 2002 06:06 PM
Our Country
Thanks Red. Nice to know we are still appreciated
US Navy 1984-until!
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Run whatcha brung
Tow whatcha blow
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slug
Pro
Out in search of my mind...
Posts: 1433
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posted December 26, 2002 08:34 PM
thanks mr red
91-02 usn
everyone else, thanks to you as well
for those continuing service, know what yer going through hehe
have a great day folks
  
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redelk
Moderator
Please... speak to the hand.
Posts: 3212
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posted December 26, 2002 09:11 PM
Edited By: redelk on 26 Dec 2002 21:18
It's easy to appreciate those that have or are currently serving when I just look at my father.
While serving in the 82nd Airborne, near Werbomont in the Ardennes, in mid Decemember 1944 ("Battle of the Bulge"), he was wounded by a german soldier's bullet.
After a brief recovery, he was reassigned to the 42nd Infantry. In April of 1945, he and his fellow soldiers had the unenviable task of liberated the infamous Dachau concentration camp.
Even after looking at the numerous photographs of him standing next to the boxcars and piles of human bodies, I will never be able to grasp a mear fraction of what he must have felt that day.
I also once worked with a 2 1/2 tour Viet Nam grunt. His "stories" were few and far between, but what he share of his experiences seem to make "Apocalypse Now" look like a children's story.
Just trying to fathom the confusion and heartbreak in both his and my father's minds when witnessing these horrors of mankind... baffles me.
Folks like myself will never comprehend the effects of seeing dead Jews in boxcars or having to shoot an armed Somilia child, while your buddy's last breaths leave his bleeding body, next to you.
One can call them "wars", "conflicts" or "police actions", but to the grunt on the streets of a foreign land, the seaman on the ship in distant waters or the airman on the just built tarmac... it's just "the shit".
The part that is most baffling is that these people who so unselfishly serve our country, don't expect or even want us to understand or comprehend it. They did it so we wouldn't have to.
From what I have seen, read and heard about these events, I'm not just thankful, but I believe that I have been blessed to live in a country who soldiers were willing to experience these horrors... just so I and the rest of us Americans wouldn't have to.
God bless you all.
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There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.
-Ernest Hemingway
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Dino
Pro
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posted December 26, 2002 09:42 PM
I don't care what the others say, I think ya' got a good head on yer' shoulders Sherman. (wish more people felt that way),....late 60's and early 70's was NOT a good time to be in the service......almost felt like we were the "enemy" when we came back to the states.
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uh oh
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ZHooligan
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posted December 26, 2002 10:28 PM
That is about as true a statement as can sadly be said. Something wrong about coming home. walking into the airport and being attacked by protestors and litterally being hit with a "Make Peace not War" sign.
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Hells Dark Lord
Needs a life
living life, and loving it.
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posted December 28, 2002 08:39 AM
hey Red, I can really relate to that post. Everyone knows rightnow I am sitting in the middle of Kuwait, about 20 miles from the Iraqi border. We made the best of the Christmas Holiday. I will tell you the one thing that made me smile the most and at the same time make me miss home the most was a letter. It wasnt just any old letter, and it wasnt from a family memeber. It was a letter from a 10 year old little girl named Tiffany, from Mt Vernon WA. She wrote a letter to a soldier, any soldier, and I received it. It was a simple letter telling me of the local flowers, and that she liked to play the violin. To some it may not sound like a big deal...But to me it was! I have read that letter many times since i received it. When I get tired and beat down by the chaotic pace that we keep here, I pick it up and read it. It reminds me why I am here, I why I, and many others like myself make the sacrifices that we do. I have been in the Army now for 14 years, and I will continue to do my time, until my time is up. Why will I take the chanve of missing yet another Christmas, birthday, Thankgiving, or Easter in a foriegn land......because if Tiffany, and the millions of other Tiffany's out there......Nothing like the innocense of a child to put the world in its proper prespective..... sorry for rambling ya'll, but between Tiffany's letter and that poem, I thought I had to.....Happy Holidays ya'll....Carry on, all is secure....  Jim
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When in doubt, lean farther and go faster....
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beansbaxter
Needs a life
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posted December 29, 2002 03:31 AM
You can take my life away, but you can never take my freedom.
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beansbaxter
Needs a life
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posted December 29, 2002 02:30 PM
Seen the current huge deployment of troops to the Middle East...not lookin' good, sigh.
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ZHooligan
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posted December 29, 2002 09:29 PM
Good to see your post Jim. Hadn't heard or seen you post for a few days and I started to wonder about how and what you might be up to.
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slug
Pro
Out in search of my mind...
Posts: 1433
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posted December 30, 2002 02:07 PM
all those who are headed out there, keep safe.
watch yer back, and yer buddy's back too. you can be VERY sure the blue-helmets won't be. and absolutely positive your govt isn't.
what's aggravating is some of this crap coulda been avoided if they had let us finish pushing the big shiny red buttons. in 98 we were out there, ready to send a rain of tommyhawks out to liberate iraq from sodomy hussein.
to the point of being at gen quarters, firing solutions and targets entered, missiles hot.
then some whiny liberal faggot decided to let them have 128757657309785 more chances and called it off.
so here we sit, sending more of our men & women to take care of something that SHOULD have been fixed LAST administration.
so anyway stay safe, keep yer heads down, and pack your CBR equipment close to the top.
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Kawi12r
Parking Attendant
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posted December 30, 2002 03:36 PM
Thanks for the post.
U.S. Air Force
1998-?
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Kawi12r
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Hells Dark Lord
Needs a life
living life, and loving it.
Posts: 7981
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posted December 31, 2002 03:43 AM
yeah I am back Z, had to go out and train for a few days, then just got back from a few more days of urban training, back in the kabal for a while, but they are taling about sending us to another kabal with no net. so I might be offline for a bit if we do go there....will keep you guys posted...Jim
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When in doubt, lean farther and go faster....
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