Happy Birthday America!

I was watching the fireworks tonight with the grandsons and wondered how many more Forth of July's I would be around to see, but not just that.  I thought of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who fought from the very first day, in 1776 to the present.

I thought of Washington in Valley Forge when he didn't have enough food, shelter, or equipment for his Army.  The privates that left bloody footprints in the snow.

I thought of "Old Hickory" Jackson and his men marching to New Orleans, engaging the British Army in that day when the War of 1812 was already over.

I thought of JEB Stewart, Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses Grant, Sherman, and many more Generals torn apart because of a war that threatened to tear a nation apart.  The soldiers of the South fighting without pay and so starved that they stop fighting to pillage wagons for food in the Yankee supply trains.

I thought of Teddy Roosevelt and his Western men in Cuba fighting the Spanish and the unseen enemy of Yellow Fever and malaria.

The Lost Battalion in that forest in Europe.  Of the privates in the trenches.  Those dashing young men in their flying machines who ushered in a third dimension to war that would be more horrible than any could imagine when it came to age in WWII.

I thought of the Marines that fought the Banana Wars between the World Wars in Central and South America.

I thought of the submariners that were the first to strike back at a deceitful and vengeful enemy in 1941.  Of the airmen whose duty it was to destroy a city with one single bomb to end that conflict.

I thought of all of the ones from Korea and Viet Nam to today in Afghanistan, and Iraq.

All of them men in young boy's bodies.  Some of them not old enough to vote, but old enough to leave part of themselves in a foreign land for the people of that land who neither wanted them nor cared if they lived or died.

I was a part of them once.  It is likely that I somehow contracted ALS because of my service to my country.  Do I regret it?  NO!  Would I do it again? Absolutely. Would I do it again with the knowledge of what was to become in my life?  Without hesitation or regret.

So tonight I say Happy Birthday America.  I wish for you to endure for another 239 years!  I don't know if I will be here next year to say this or not, but I know that I will be looking over my loved ones if I am not.

Until next time......................