Is everyone prepared for the celebrations, parades, rallies, parties, and outreach efforts???

[TahitiNut]

Imagine! After the efforts and attention given Halloween and the election, it's tough to deal with all the costumes, store decorations, presents, gifts, greeting cards, and parades ... right? The whole nation is going to be consumed with the holiday!! After all, there's not a single person in this whole country who doesn't know a veteran.

Believe me, it's a day that takes a lot out of us veterans ... dealing with all the attention and expressions of appreciation. VA hospitals are overwhelmed with flowers and visitors. So, practice and be ready ...

It was nothing.

Really.

:eyes: :eyes:

[babylonsister]

1. Wow. True. Rec'd. nt

[123infinity]

2. What will I do with all these flowers?

Oh, some are edible...

[But....]

4. Lo-cal?

Darn diet:hippie:

[TahitiNut]

3. Thirty-nine years ago today ...

... I was on my way back to Nam from a disastrous 'last-minute' R&R in Hawaii, where my 'bride' of slightly less than a year was able to muster up the self-sacrifice to make love (er... have "sexual relations" ... with me) once during a week in 'paradise' during which she made it pretty clear that she didn't want to be married. To me. Since we'd gotten married after nearly two years of engagement and only a couple of weeks before I reported to Oakland Army Base and flown to the Repo Depot in Bien Hoa, I had a hard time figuring out what I'd done ... or could do.

As I was flying back to Nam, little did I know I'd be "back on the block" in less than five days. DEROS'd. ETS'd. Early-out. No. I didn't know. (Yay, Nixon!) I really didn't know much of anything.

All I know was that I was on an airplane. Going to Viet Nam. For the third time in less than a year. I thought I'd be there for about seven more weeks. I was a two-digit midget. And I had no idea what I was going to do.

That was what I think of as my first Veterans Day.


Here's to better Veterans Days! :toast:

Welcome home, brothers!! :patriot:

Happy VD!! :party:

[But....]

5. Tip one back, bro!

:beer: :toast: Here's to better days!

[unhappycamper]

6. You got to fly from Oakland?

I got my ass loaded on a troopship with the rest of the 198th Light Infantry Brigade in 1967. Ever been on one?

We hit 40 foot swells about 200 miles north of Hawaii and I didn't stop puking until we hit the beach in Da Nang.

[TahitiNut]

7. As a former "Coastie" ... I would probably have preferred the slow ride.

In the early days of the troop build-up (USARV over MACV), there were unit deployments. After that, we went as individuals ... replacements ... and came back the same way. As I recall, there were also full unit withdrawals, too.