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Entry: An Old Soldier Who Hasn't Faded Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/an_old_soldier_who_hasnt_faded#1757 Post contents: Beautiful. For what it's worth, let me humbly... (and I'm serious about "humbly", because I've been on the wrong end of a gun-barrel and known just a SMALL FRACTION of the terror of combat, and so I know I must always be humble in the presence of men who have been in the real combat of total war) ...let me offer some personal memories to augment this: I remember, one day when I was four years old, in 1967, one of my father's former students came to visit our house. (My father - who was a combat veteran of the 8th US Army Air Corps in WW II - was a teacher of American History in our local High School.) He was an incredibly big man - my Dad's former student - and I remember, my Dad asked him (with a smile) to stand up for me. And he did (smiling at me warmly), and my Dad told me: "THAT's a MARINE!" (And that was very generous of my Dad, considering how he was an Air Corps guy... ;-) So that was the first time I ever saw a United States Marine, when I was four years old, in 1967. I was awestruck by his gentle, quiet dignity. (Yes I know, Marines can be brutal - that's their job - but in civilian life, US Marines are the most courteous, most gentle men in the world.) And now more to tell: Throughout the Viet Nam War, my father wrote letters once a week, to EVERY one of his former students who went off to fight in Viet Nam - because my Dad knew what it was like to be very young and afraid in a war zone, far from home, and how much it means to get letters from home when you're at war. He went through that when he was just 18, 19 years old, in WW II. So he knew what it REALLY meant, to "support the troops." He had a stack of letters (which I've read after he died in 1987), he had a stack of letters which his family and friends wrote to him during WW II.... ...many were from his father (my Grandfather), who would always end his letters with prayers to the Blessed Mother Mary. And some of my Dad's other wartime letters, were from his former teachers at La Salle High School in Philadelphia - a private Catholic school - he had MANY letters from the Christian Brothers who were his former teachers. And, in 1944, my Grandfather published a poem in the Philadelphia newspaper, which he wrote for my Dad, titled, "Blue Star In My Window." In that war, every family who had sons fighting in the war, would hang blue stars in their windows - and if their son died, then they would hang a gold star. And my Grandfather wrote, in part: "Gold stars are in Heaven, They shine eternal light, I pray the Lord above me, Keep my star blue tonight." And yet, my Father hated the Viet Nam war. He knew it was a stupid war. Yet, he still "supported the troops" throughout that war, by writing personal letters to them every week. (How many Americans do this today?) And then, years later, in the 1970s and 80s, my father had a friend/colleague at his high school, a German immigrant named Dr S, PhD. Dr S had fought in the Luftwaffe, and so he was literally a mortal enemy of my father during WW II. He and my father literally fought against each other in some of the same battles. But then Dr S became an American citizen (he was never a Nazi Party member, and so he was welcome to become a US citizen, because German warriors are NOT the same thing as Nazis...) ...and so, on every VE-Day, every May 8, Dr S and my father would always get together for some beers, to celebrate the end of the war! They literally fought in combat against each other, but then they celebrated the end of the war on every VE-Day. That's the kind of friendship which only real warriors can ever understand... ...the kind of ideal, the kind of chivalry, which our country's leaders cannot even imagine. Real warriors understand this. But neocon Chickenhawks like Podhoretz and Frum and the boys at NR (aside from Buckley, whom I still respect), can't even begin to imagine it. Anyway, thank you for this, Mr Rarey. Sent at: 2008 11 22