For Veterans day
Milatary fire Milatary times
Will briefly pay honor to yesterday’s heroes it is good to think about our boys I think this will help first to a place that was home for
Eight months Fritichie air field over in back of fort Ord by Monterrey it was small but it had about three giant hangers and some of the
Guys had those roadsters the long one’s that they use parachutes to stop them they tested them on the tarmac then the Walters
crash truck this behemoth carried a driver and six man crew the tires were six foot high it had a water cannon on top swiveled three
Hundred and sixty degrees a four inch nozzle that shot water and with the flip of a switch a mixture of foam two hundred feet
And you would empty fifteen hundred gallons of water in fifty nine seconds but we turned it into a snow maker you had this back
Drop of California climate palm by the fire house fanned palms in the yard but we pulled up in front at the side and cut loose starting at
the farthest point in front of the wall that housed our sleeping quarters mixed with foam we laid foam four feet deep all the way out to
The tarmac there you go white Christmas it didn’t last long in the sun and heat but for a little while we had Christmas it was cool.
Our first hero was a returned medic from Nam this was after I was transferred to Hunter Liggett we were in the barracks he had his
Shirt off what I saw told the story four nasty bullet holes and the skin grafts it took to close them one who runs out in a fire fight
To tend the wounded and hears just kids crying out mama as they are dying the cong didn’t honor this medical angel of mercy just kept
Shooting him he was the same but he wasn’t he was damaged goods he had a quietness a sadness you couldn’t reach the real person
He used to be, he is part of the wounded brother hood I never suffered as the day now out of the service and back out in California I
Read a piece about a homeless vet living in Golden Gate Park next To Height Ashbury it cut me deeplyit was hard to get it out of my mind he couldn’t hold a job depended on family then the cold streets of Frisco and I knew the other hundreds hiding in Washington state in the forest their children with
Them I knew this because of the stories of how and what their children did to them if they this innocently walked up behind them and
Said daddy. This will give you a deeper knowledge of how long and deep this haunts all of our heroes after getting out of the service I
Stayed in Monterey worked in the church and worked as a painters apprentice in the painters union a painter was at the Presidio right
Above fisherman’s Warf this facility has many functions but one in particular is the study of linguistics so this naturally had many
Nationalities coming and going in this story Japanese was the problem one painter I guess bored walked up behind an older painter
Poked him in the back with his finger the older man whirled around with a four inch brush the metal part took half the guys front teeth
Out afterwards the old man apologized profusely he gave this even more scary account he told the man all day I have been back
In world war two fighting **** this is now nineteen sixty nine the older man said you are lucky you didn’t come up behind me two
Minutes before I was scraping with a six inch putty knife I would have cut your throat the man lost teeth he could have lost his life. This fighting for our freedom Doesn’t magically stop when they come home from battle fields please honor them and again the greatest warrior whose birth we
celebrate this month extol him and know we can never know how he suffered our hearts are not that big but he defeated
out mortal enemy we owe him our lives. Christ our great captain