Memorial Day

I'm not really from a military based family. My father in law helped build the Reykjavik Airport in Iceland during World War II as a Navy Ensign in the Seabees and also served as a Seabee on Tinian Island in the Pacific during World War II building and improving the airport there. My ex-father-in-law was a young ensign at Pearl Harbor and at age 21 took his destroyer out as an ensign and senior officer on board under fire on December 7th 1942 and didn't see or hear from his wife for 2 years. My father and uncle served in the Marine Core Reserve in Seattle as Hellcat Gunners on a biplane there during the 1930s. My other uncle served in the Navy on Aleutian Islands during World War II.My cousin Billy was in the Navy from 1960 until 1964 and was off of Cuba on his ship during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the whole world almost nuked itself off the map.

However, I guess I was very lucky because I had had childhood epilepsy and when the Viet Nam War was on even though more people my age died there than any other( born 1948) I didn't get drafted and have to go.

Today, I was watching John King on CNN on TV. He was interviewing an Army Officer who had died for 15 minutes but had come back to life. He had had a complete recovery physically and it was great to see the caliber of the young men who are military officers these days, especially on Memorial Day as I reminisce about the military men in my own family who are all gone now.

I can remember back during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. I would have been 14 then and my cousin Billy, who died in 2001 2 weeks after 9-11 because he worked for Boeing and had built some of those planes that went in, was in 1962 about 19 years of age and in the Navy and stationed then in Long Beach Harbor on his ship. So often he would come visit my parents and I because we were some of his closest relatives in California. Since I was an only child and because he was kind of a wild child reminiscent of the Elvis years he taught me a lot of stuff about girls because after all, I was 14 and he was a worldly 19 in the Navy. My father and I helped him buy his 1953 Ford convertible which was quite a nice care still back then. He was an excellent car mechanic and turned it relatively soon into another street racer with chrome reverse wheels and slicks(which are now illegal on the   highways so you only see them at racetracks now). But then you could still legally have wide 12 to 15 inch wide 'racing slicks' on the back wheels of your car that were usually used for public street racing at that time. I remember he took me at 14 to 1 Round Table Pizza parlor back then in Glendale and bought us a pizza and bought me secretly a Heineken Dark Beer. At 14 I was surprised at how good beer went with pizza. So Memorial Day, mostly for me is remembering everyone I know or have known who has served in the military who have mostly now have all passed on. The only one I'm not sure about is my best friend from High School, Mike, who got early Alzheimers probably from his Viet Nam War experiences in the military and the last time I saw him he didn't know what his wallet was and almost didn't know who he was. So, like I said Memorial Day mostly for me is remembering all the folks I have known in the military. Because of them and millions like them we still have a country worth living in and today is a day to pray for them all and their sacrifices now for several hundred years.