Vietnam Veterans Day.

26 years ago I'm hanging out with my girlfriend and her dad just BS'ing on their patio and he asks me if I want to see something he brought back from his two tours in Vietnam. 

So he brings out this partial Bell helicopter rotor blade sharpened to a razors edge fastened to a bamboo handle tied off with twine that he took from a Vietnam soldier he shot while walking point checking villages as a command seargent major. He was clearing tunnels when the soldier came out of a burnt out shack. This thing is all rusted and heavy and diabolically lethal. 

So I've been married to his daughter for the past 22 years. He's 71 now and he still might be the very last guy on the planet I'd ever want to square up with. If you played 18 holes of golf with him now you'd think he's a big ol' teddy bear. Never knowing that teddy bear would end your life post haste if you presented real threat. 

I know he's carried around a lot of baggage from his two tours. But he's managed to manage it pretty well. He's pretty laid back considering the Vietnam scrapbook he shared with me. It's pretty grim stuff. 

He gave my wife and I a USA flag in a wood case he's had for decades when we moved back to CA in 2014. It's in our entry way. Can't ever thank those that have served our country enough. 

My husband and I found out like, three weeks ago, one of our best acquaintances received the Purple Heart!!!  Saved 3 men in his platoon.  He doesn't talk of Vietnam at all.....  

It strikes me that often the bravest soldiers feel the least need to talk about their service. I had a customer recently mention to me that people shouldn't cross him because the Marines taught him to be a "trained killer"-----upon further discussion, this was a dude who didn't make it through basic training and was busted for sleeping on sentry duty and tossed for abusing pain killers. I spend a lot of time in VA's and it seems to me the ones with the most "Look at me gear" were guys that were stateside cooks.....God Bless America.

My dad told more WWII stories than my brother who had one tour in 'Nam in medical maintenance. ("They protect me there..")  Yeah, until you learn he slept with his gun, etc. One of the few stories he told was when he and our cousin met up and sat on a rooftop drinking and watching mortar rounds fly overhead. Vietnam Vets are never thanked enough.