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Posted by Caleb (Kansas City) [24.32.238.6] on Tuesday, December 07, 2010 at 21:13:34 :
I have few days to remember. I was rather young when the challenger blew up, but I remember it because to this day it was the only time I have ever seen my Dad cry. I remember my Dad being recalled to the guard during the first gulf war, and I will never forget where I was when the events unfolded on September 11th.
My Great Uncles both volunteered for service early in 1942. One became a mechanic for the Army Air Corps and spent his time fixing B17's for the duration of the war. The other became an Engineer building mahogony bridges jumping islands in the South Pacific until they were overrun by Japanese forces. When a young man on a .30 cal maching gun was killed, my uncle stepped in and fired that gun until the barrel glowed red and he finally ran out of ammunition. The Japanese still kept coming. His unit fought until they had killed every attacking Japanese soldier and the small river they were bridging was plugged with bodies and ran red.
He died when I was also very young, but I did have the pleasure of knowing him. To the day he died, his brother hated the Japanese with every part of him for what they had forced his brother to do, for bringing them into the war, for all of the terrible things they did to US soldiers they had captured. He never spoke much of the war, or the stories his brother confided in him, but he did tell us that no matter how much he hated the Japanese (the people too because there can't be an effort of that magnitude without the support of the people) that it was not the burdain for our Generation to carry. They had fought and earned that freedom for us, whether on the front lines, or under the shrouds of an airplane engine, the war affected everyone.
I will never forget the sacrifice they made, and there will never be a day that remembering the stories I was told, or reading of how my Grandfather earned a Bronze star in France, that a tear will not come to my eye.
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