Ladies and Gentlemen of Duckboats...

Rick Pierce

Rick Pierce

Well-known member
Please take a moment to remember those who have fallen in service to our Nation.

Americans have never hesitated to answer the call, whether in places known to all such as Gettysburg, the Ardenne, Midway, Bastogne, Guadalcanal, Pork Chop Hill, and Khe Sanh, or unnamed, unknown places that are simply points on a map.

Men, women, rich, poor, every race, every color, every creed.

It's easy to get lost in the three-day weekend and forget the gifts we have been given and what they cost.

Very best,

Rick
 
Thanks for the post Rick. Yes, I remember. Stopped at a Veteran's memorial yesterday between Madison and Baraboo. We were the only ones there at the time but did notice that on our return the flags had all been lowered to half mast. Seems the older I get the more feel on these special days.
 
Rick
What's sad is those of us who survived WWII are seeing our "brothers" dropping like flies.
wis boz
 
I agree.

I was fresh out of forestry school in 1992 and went to work for a consulting firm in south Arkansas. The senior partner in the firm was very no-nonsense and still typed his memos on a manual typewriter, though I never knew where he managed to find ribbons for them. He said when he came home from the war, he had to wear his uniform to school because civilian clothes just weren't available. He also said that when he was a younger man he had enjoyed all kinds of hunting, but after he came back, he just never was able to do it again.

On his birthday, we got him a cake and made him sit down and have a piece with us. We asked if he wanted a coke, and he shook his head..."water, please..." We handed him a glass, he took a drink, and then proceeded to tell us that during the war his small group (he was with the Big Red 1, but don't remember exactly which/who) wound up getting surrounded on a small knoll by German troops, cut off from any water source. He said, "after a couple days, your tongue swells up, you can't hardly talk, and you would kill a man for one drop of water..." He was kind of quiet for a while, and then he said, "we decided we were going to die here or die there, so we shot our way through and got back to our own troops..." It was pretty quiet in the breakroom for a while after that.

He passed away a few years ago, but I still think about him.
 
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