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Saturday, April 23, 2016

VIETNAM ONE WEEKS DEAD

Now that I am single, and spring cleaning has not time to rush
through, I become easily distracted.
Yesterday, it was the closet in my spare bedroom
that holds most of the grand girls toys.
I had to clean them all out, downsize but each
one brought back some type of memory.
It took hours. So this morning I am like,
"okay, today I am going to finish this task"
Then I come across the stack of over 
15 full Life magazines that I found last
night in that very same closet.
The dates on the magazines? 1967 through 1969.
As I layed in Touro Hospital fighting my
own battle called Cancer, my brother fought
a battle known as Vietnam. 
This morning the magazines get my attention.
Especially the one with the article titled,
 VIETNAM, ONE WEEK'S DEAD
dated June 27, 1969.
This article strikes me because I associate
Vietnam with brother, Peter.
As I look through the article I am
surprised by the first two pages having
24 young mens images there, all between
the ages of 18 to 25. Way too young to die.
The real shocker is when I turn the page.
you see, those were not the only ones killed
in the total of that one week,
there are 10 more pages filled with pictures
of more young men, ages the same.
In one week, a war that some believe should 
have never happened,
142 young men lost their lives!
I am shocked, I am saddened, I am proud.
Proud that Life magazine believed this war
was important and that they placed each ones
picture in their magazine. I am saddened to realize
how many of those lives would have made
even more of a difference in the world than 
what might they have been if not having 
to fight a war. I am proud, so very proud 
that I have a brother, who like these men,
went to a place he knew little about 
not because it might have been what he wanted
but because it is what his country, Our Country
asked of him. My brother, we were so lucky,
came home alive, but in no way will I say he
paid a lesser price than those faces spread
across the pages of an old Life magazine.
My brother went away as an innocent young
man and came back as someone else and
none of us, NONE will ever know exactly
what he may have been had he not had a war to
fight in. Yet, although his health is not the best,
he is finally recognized fully by the
County as a VETERAN, A HERO.
He went on to be a father, a husband,
a Pop, a funny man but not the brother he 
went away as.
So I close the Life magazine as I am just
not ready to read the article. I will now
go and continue to clean my cottage
but in no way will my mind or heart leave that article as
one mans words,
"I SEE DEATH COING UP THE HILL"
the last words he wrote to his dear Mother,
wil not leave my mind on this most beautiful day,
a day that I will remember,
WE ARE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE.
Thank you brother and all those other heroes.







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