Reply #14: Greetings Mina and a welcome happy veterans day to all our [View All]

[BigMcLargehuge]

current and former members of the armed forces, a thanks to all who served in The Great War, The Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Gulf 1 and the current Gulf conflict. I'd like to thank my grandfather Jean Paul Bourbeau for his Service in the US Navy at the Battle of the Coral Sea, and my father Robert Louis DeRego for his service in Vietnam from 1961-1964 with the Green Berets.

Veterans Day was always been treated as a non-holiday in my house. My Dad would rarely, if ever, discuss his service, took no credit for his actions, and harbored a general disdain for the US government following his tours of duty.

Like so many others of current and wars past, he enlisted voluntarily. An act he describes as "the folly of youth". At 18 I wanted to join the service, which prompted the first time my father ever described some of his experiences in detail. One such story resounded:

(paraphrased)

We arrived Saigon to receive our detachment orders. The guy in charge of overseas operations explains that we are supposed to help the South Vietnamese army patrol an area of 35 miles around Nha Trang and engage and harass the enemy on sight. My CO turned to me and asked, "so Peewee, have you got the guts to kill?" I didn't know what to say. I was 19 years and what the hell did I know.

We flew into Nha Trang the next morning and the base was under heavy fire. The fighting lasted most of the morning, and eventually subsided. We lined up each wounded man and I began administering first aid. I was the medic and my first duty was to assess who could and could not be saved. My CO was wounded and lay there begging, "help me Peewee, help me!"But I had to step over him because in the time it would have taken to save him I would have to let three other men die. I did everything I could for everyone I could. It turned out the guts I needed to kill were there, but not in the way he expected.

A week later the same guy that gave us the "kill everyone" outside Nha Trang speech in Saigon showed up to take command at Nha Trang. Suddenly the mission changed, we were no longer allowed to venture outside the perimiter. From now on out mission would be guarding and maintaining the security of the base.

It was all bullshit.

(end story)

My Dad received several medals and commondations for his service, none of which he will discuss freely. I remember him giving my younger brother his Silver Star to use as part of a childhood Halloween costume (Han Solo for those interested), and I remember he had a box of other "stuff, junk, debris," as he called it, stowed away in the bowels of our family home. Inside were other bars, other medals, and bullets. Discussing them was never an option.

When it came time for the recruiter to take me for a physical my Dad, the 5.4" former Green Beret, "persuaded" him to leave without me and never to darken our doorstep again.

My Dad explained that he was always more concerned about being known for what was important. He was a Dad, a husband, a businessman, a plumber, a restaurant owner, these, he said, were the measure of his stature, not the experiences into which he was thrust as a wide eyed and naieve youth.

I have made it a family tradition to participate in Veterans Day services and rememberances here in New Hampshire, and I intend to teach my son to do the same. The day is far to important to be left to mattress and appliance sales, to lonely old men and cold stone monuments. Our veterans, all veterans, whether serving by circumstance or their own personal choice, deserve more. They deseve our gratitude and our support.

I call my Dad every Veterans Day and thank him, and I thank all the veterans with whom I work personally, and their humility humbles me.

I have taken Siegfried Sassoon's words to heart, although written in 1919, and about years following a war so distant from us now, the words ring true and burn today as they did then. Have you forgotten yet?

Aftermath by Seigfried Sassoon

Have you forgotten yet? ...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same - and War's a bloody game ...
Have you forgotten yet? ...

Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz -
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench -
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, "Is it all going to happen again?"

Do you remember the hour of din before the attack -
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads - those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet? ...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.

And from Wilfred Owen, killed during WW1 comes this anti-propaganda piece that, though written a generation before my Dad was born, speaks of his attitude.

Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori

Questions of The Day

1. What picture touched you the most? Why?

None touched me the most, but all touched me. From the young and hopeful faces of the soldiers to the terrified visages of the Vietnamese, all the pictures moved me.

2. Name one food or beverage item that you *MUST* have on a daily basis.

Coffee. Can't run the engine if there's no gas.

3. How many framed pictures do you have at home or work on display?

About 20. In my office I have two, Mrs. McLargehuge and Little McLargehuge in one frame, and two pics of my Grandmother in another frame.