Happy Veteran’s Day

It’s veteran’s day, and it appears I have the day off. Good thing. I have things to do before I head out this weekend. Starting with a cardiologist appointment this morning. It’s a long story. Way back, I though I was having a heart attack, so I went to the hospital. Turned out to be a torn rotator cuff, hungover, sour stomach, and blood pressure. So now I’m in the heart machine vortex.

Unlike back then, I’m fit, I’m not overweight, I bike, I run. I’m fine. The test will show it.

I was never in the service. Too lazy and self centered. Back in the day, it would’ve been good for me. I know a bunch though.

Today there’s a celebration at the Catholic School that we help with. There’s breakfast, a ceremony, then they have the vets (There’ll be a few dozen) go to classrooms to talk to the kids. It’s a fantastic program.

One of my friends was a door gunner in Vietnam. You’d never guess it. He’s about the most mild mannered, soft spoken, farm boy you’ll meet. The image of him, now old, doesn’t match what we see in the movies about door gunners. Can you see the door gunner from full metal jacket talking in a Nebraska farm accent?

One year at this event, a kid asked if he had something happen that his life was in danger but it was still funny? What a great question!

So he tells the story:

His chopper was flying some green berets into the Cambodia/Laos/Vietnam border. The flight out he had to take a dump. So when they set down, he got out of the chopper, went a few yards away and dropped trou.

Didn’t take long and the rockets started flying, so the pilot spun up and was starting to lift out. My friend ran fast as he could back with his pants around his ankles and managed to grab the skid and clamp his legs to it best he could.

They wound up safe. But he told the kids he had the honor of mooning three countries all at once.

Happy Vets Day to all our vets. It often times is a thankless, but necessary job.