19841210 Monday
The Reclaimer
Earning these medals was much easier than wearing them.
If the power was mine to exchange them for the lives that they cost, I would gratefully make it, even at the expense of my own life.
On rainy days, the physical pain from the results of fifteen purple hearts makes itself badly known.
On Armistice Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day, the mental pain from fifteen valor medals makes itself badly known.
Pain and I are old friends, from way back in my childhood. One of the advantages of pain is that it burns tremendous amounts of calories. There is no danger of me getting fat, no matter how much I eat. With the D V A, Department of Veterans Affairs, managing my medical care there is no danger of ever getting rid of my pain.
If you think of yourself only, you will know fear. If you think of others only, you will know courage.
One Special Forces type told me that if I stuck with him he would have me wearing horse turds as big as diamonds.
This must be what he meant: (listed in order of precedence)
1 Distinguished Service Cross (second)
2 Silver Stars (fifth)
1 Distinguished Flying Cross (eighth)
5 Bronze Star Medals w/Valor devices (tenth)
15 Purple Hearts (eleventh)
2 Air Medals w/Valor devices (fourteenth)
2 Joint Service Commendation Medals w/Valor Devices (fifteenth)
2 Army Commendation Medals w/Valor devices (sixteenth)
4 Good Conduct Medals (twentieth)
2 National Defense Service Medals (thirty-fourth)
3 Non-Comm. Off. Professional Development Ribbons (forty-second)
1 Army Service Ribbon (forty-third)
2 Overseas Service Ribbons (forty-fourth)
"No money went with them, no class privileges. Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else."
Joseph Heller
Catch-22
Chapter eight
Lieutenant Scheisskoff
page 73
War is Hell.
General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891)
George William (Bill) Newport
Copyrighted
10 December 1984
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