This Veterans Day

For John, BLUF:  Being a Vet isn’t about the sacrifice, but about the willingness to lay it all on the line.  Many had it worse than me, tramping through the jungles of Viet-nam.  Some gave all, like my wife's late husband, whose plane crashed in the Western Pacific on a peacetime training mission.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Sometimes the herd is wrong

From The Citizen (Fayette County GA), by Mr Terry Garlock, 29 January 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

Well into the autumn of my life, I am occasionally reminded the end is not too far over the horizon.  Mortality puts thoughts in my head, like, “What have I done to leave this world a better place?”

There actually are a few things that I think made my existence worthwhile.  I will tell you just one of them, because so many of you need to hear it.

No matter how much this rubs the wrong way, I am quite proud to have served my country in the Vietnam War.  Yes, I know, most of you were taught there is shame attached to any role in the war that America lost, an unfortunate mistake, an immoral war, an unwise intrusion into a civil war, a racist war, a war in which American troops committed widespread atrocities, where America had no strategic interest, and that our North Vietnamese enemy was innocently striving to re-unite Vietnam.

I had two tours in Southeast Asia.  My second was in Thailand in 1973.  We were flying missions in support of the Cambodian Government, against the soon to be infamous Khmer Rouge.  But the US Congress, lacking strategic insight, cut off the funding for our operations in mid-summer.

Regards  —  Cliff