Fun and Games

22 October 2013

Another Veterans Day approaches. Another Marine Corps Birthday. The war in Afghanistan continues to drain our resources and more important, continues to injure and kill our young men and women. They keep going because they're trained to do so and you won't hear any complaints from them. They do it for very little pay and always with the thought that they might not make it home. The families struggle right along side them and God knows how many Afghani's are dying. The approach of Veterans Day always makes me pause to think about how I spent my own youth. It gives me time to also think about that great bunch of guys I shipped out with and the ones I'm still in touch with. We had a lot of Fun and Games - but we didn't use the same meaning for the phrase that you civilians use. In a Marine Rifle Company irony was applied to every minute of your waking day. The irony often turned dark, morose, bleak. Sometimes you just felt lucky to wake up. More than anything else, you were glad to get home. Nothing effects us Veterans more than to see a nation uninformed and seemingly uncaring about what are country's Armed Services does for the rest of us here at home. As a VA patient my bi-annual check-ups usually coincide with Veterans Day and the Marine Corps Birthday. I walk the hallways of the VA Hospital and make my appointments. I feel like I'm back in the military. I do a lot of "Hurry up and waiting." It's Fun and Games again, just like the old days. And then I run into the younger guys. They're back from the middle east and Afghanistan. Some are injured very badly and will remain that way for a good many years. I count my blessings and say a silent prayer for them. I try and converse with them as much as I can. It's the least I can do as a fellow-vet. The age difference doesn't really matter. We joke a lot about Fun and Games.