We honor our Veterans, con’t.

Today is Veterans Day, the one day of the year when we focus on our fellow countrymen who have served our country in uniform.

My friend Marylou, whose brother Capt. Herbert Crosby was MIA for 37 years, has written a beautiful and personal tribute to our Vets.  I hope you’ll take the time to click over and read what she has so lovingly put on paper.

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ThirdWaveDave Logan echoes John Ruberry at Marathon Pundit, who has photos of a huge rock that is repainted each year by an artist with a love for our men and women in uniform.

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The Noisy Room has some beautiful sounds honoring our Vets.  No noisy stuff there!

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Tom Kovach left this comment at my Veterans Day post that I’m bringing forward to the front page.  Thanks Tom, and God bless our Vets.

The VERY FIRST welcome-home parade for Vietnam veterans did not occur until September of 1981.

Let’s put that in perspective.

The war “officially” ended in 1973. The South Vietnamese were left to fight on their own against North Vietnam, China, and elements from Russia. Saigon fell in April of 1975. Many have seen the classic news video of throngs climbing the steps of the US Embassy there, trying to get aboard the last helicopters evacuating embassy staff. The last man off the roof was a USMC Recon sharpshooter named Emil Pugh. (I met him once.)

So, it was not until EIGHT YEARS AFTER THE WAR WAS OVER that our country began to express thanks for their duties in Vietnam. That first homecoming parade was organized by a group of seven Vietnam veterans — the first combat veterans in American history to have to organize their own homecoming parade. The lead organizer was a man named Howard Newmann, who took over management of his father’s hardware store after he returned from Vietnam. Howie was severely wounded by FRIENDLY FIRE — which was far more prevalent in the jungles of Vietnam than it was in previous wars.

Howie was coming back from a three-day patrol. He was pont man. It was late at night. A nervous “green bean” was on perimeter. Instead of whispering the challenge word, per SOPs, the kid set off a Claymore mine — which was located right near Howie’s feet. (If there is any good news to this story, it is that Howie was so close to the mine that the damage from the flying steel balls was limited to his lower legs.) Howie once showed me his legs. I never wanted to see them again, and that was after they had healed for 20 years. (You see, in 1994, the year that I first ran for Congress, I helped Howie to register as a voter … for the first time.)

That homecoming parade marched along Harry L Drive in Johnson City, New York. The end point was Newmann’s Hardware Store. The parade was in September of 1981. There was a chilly drizzle that day — kinda like winter in Vietnam. I saw the photos in the newspaper the next day; the day that I arrived home on leave from Korea.

By the way, “Harry L Drive” is named after Harry L Johnson, a patriotic American businessman, and the son of George F Johnson. If you want to learn the important legacy of the Johnson family to the rest of America (and, at the same time, learn why the Socialists fight so hard to keep control of Congress), then click here.

By the way, Johnson City was selected (by who, I don’t know) to be a target city for Vietnamese refugees. I once worked with a man that had spent TEN YEARS in a Communist “re-education” camp, after having been a captain in the South Vietnamese army. He loves America.

I wish that more “natural-born citizens” loved America as much as he does, and were willing to act like it. If they did, then we would not have an illegal alien in the White House right now.

Principles matter. Remember!!!

PS: The veterans that really deserve to hear your thanks can’t be at the parades today. The Bible says that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”. They’ll hear you.

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