Well, I’m STILL on the road, one more set of meetings tomorrow and back to DC tomorrow night on the red-eye…
Weather was lousy (for Hawaii) today, rained and low clouds all day…
Dropped a couple of folks off at the airport for their flights, and back to the hotel. Decided to go over and grab a buffet at the Hale Koa for dinner. Ended up at a table with three generations of Marines, Gramps (WWII/Korea Vet), Dad (Vietnam Vet), Son (active duty, recovering from wounds taken in Afghanistan). To put it mildly, the conversation was ‘interesting’…
Gramps was on Guadalcanal, survived; injured on Iwo Jima and evacuated…
The dad had on one of the ‘funniest’ T-shirts I’ve seen in years, on the front was the Marine emblem, on the back was…
Home is where you dig it!
Khe Sanh ’68
Turns out the Dad was posted to III MAF at Khe Sanh in Dec 67, and survived the battles in Jan-Mar of 68…
Son was on his third tour downrange, having been in Fallujah, Anbar and now Afghanistan. This time he’d been hit pretty bad so was evac’ed via Landstul. He’s an out patient at Tripler now.
Conversation finally turned to current events, media coverage, and the shootings in Tucson. NONE of these gents were happy with the rhetoric that was/is being spewed by the MSM, and the son commented that “Thankfully, the shooter wasn’t a Veteran, or we’d ALL be in more trouble than we already are”. We all agreed to THAT sentiment!!!
Gramps mumbled something, then said, “Even as bad as it was during WWII and Korea, I’ve NEVER seen this kind of BS in my life. Nobody wants to find out the truth, they just want to throw their BS out there and blame anybody but the real shooter; and Congress just sucks, they don’t get it at all…
The Dad was quiet, then brought up the ‘restraint’ that the MSM was pushing when the Ft. Hood shooting took place about not labeling Hasan as a terrorist, and how none of that was happening this time.
The Son then raised an interesting point, there were 19 shot, but all we’ve really heard about are the Congresswoman, the 9 year old, and the Judge… Who are the REST of the victims???
At that point, we just decided to drop it and went back to listening to Gramps tell sea stories about WWII and Korea (and I’d bet his got pictures to back up most if not all those stories)…
I thanked them for letting me join them, wished the son a quick recovery, and came back to play catch up on email…
Damn… just found out I missed the BCS game, but looks like Auburn won 🙂 Yeah SEC 🙂
Well, I’m out of things to say, need to pack, and get some sleep… Be careful out there folks!
Navy, how I would have LOVED to have been a mouse in your pocket, eavesdropping on that conversation.
I’ve linked to ya.
Yeah, was a good game.
O threw too many INTs.
Have a safe trip home.
Hope your meetings helpt us.
Travel safe xxx
Few things more annnoying than Quacker fans (maybe Cheeseheads). May be safe to visit the PNW now.
How many in the MSM would have the nerve to talk to that three generation family?
It sounds like you had a great conversation with Marines. Nice family. About the Shooting in Arizona, the only thing I am still mulling over was one of the men that jumped on the shooter was apologizing to the reporter for not having served in Vietnam. That flew by the reporter except that he did say that was okay, and got on to one of his questions.
Greybeard- Reciprocated, nice Blog Sir! 🙂
Skip- The meetings are helping, the level of cooperation is increasing and understanding between organizations will pay off in the long run!
Julie- Thanks!
WSF- Good point… 🙂 MSM would have RUN in the opposite direction!
Earl- I did, great folks! I missed the apology (I’m only getting bits and pieces due to work hours)
I would have loved to be able to listened in
Ahh, to be able to listen in on that conversation.
My dad flew in the army air corp, my brother flew Navy, and 1 of my grandsons is a corpman going to the 1st marines. They all have stories to tell, and I listen up.