Rubbing My (Boston) Butt On The Holiday

Bar-B-Que In Celebration & In Memory...


Thus far I've failed to mention Memorial Day in any fashion than describing my deck construction efforts and my cooking for the day.

I guess it's only fitting that there is a day separate from Veterans' Day to recognize the members of our armed forces that served our country to protect our freedom and interests in military conflict and never made it back home alive.

A number of members of my own family have served in the military since the Civil War, but very few if any have been killed in combat.

Looking back starting in recent history, my cousins in mother's and father's family were mostly girls, and the boys including myself were too young to serve in Vietnam so we avoided any losses there.

My cousin Jim subsequently joined the Marine corps after Vietnam and became a helicopter pilot, serving tours of duty in Grenada, Lebanon, and some time during the first Persian Gulf war, and today is a successful lawyer and a Brigadier General in the Marine Corps Reserve.

One of my girl cousins on Mom's side has a genius husband who never did font line service but was a fighter pilot, the Flight Surgeon of the Air force in Washington DC, and today is also a General and is soon to retire as a successful Neuro Surgeon with the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. ( I feel like a total dumbass sitting beside that guy...)

My cousin Jeff was an Army tank driver for a while with NATO forces in Germany back in the 1980's but never saw combat. Like me he probably has some interesting R&R stories to tell braving life and limb in watering holes in a foreign country.

Mom's family was also fortunate to send two of her brothers to Europe during WWII and have both of them avoid death or substantial injury during their long terms of duty.

My Uncle John was a tail and belly gunner on B-25 Mitchel low level bombers and HIS ENTIRE CREW managed to fly a couple of dozen missions without losing anything but airplanes. They all came home alive and several including Uncle John survive to this day.

Mom's father served in WWI in France including in the Argon Forrest as an Army infantryman and lost most of his hearing due to the damage done listening to Artillery fire while laying in a trench full of mud.

He came home to live another 63 years as the head of our 360 acre farm in southern Alabama.

His father--my Great Grandfather--served a number of years with the Confederate Forces' Army of the Mississippi and was severely wounded in the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky in October 1862.

His injuries caused his arm to be amputated and he was discharged from the hospital and the Army at the same time--having to resort to WALK HOME to the farm in Elba, Alabama at his own expense. (Imagine the liberal howls and the media hysteria today if the US military just turned you loose after cutting off your arm and deciding that you were no longer useful as a soldier?)

Family lore has it that no one in the family even recognized him in his ragged emaciated condition when he arrived home, but still he survived and ultimately recovered fully and lived a long life as a farmer...working a plow mule team with ONE ARM with the reigns wrapped around his neck or torso.

On Dad's side of the family tree things are a little more fuzzy beyond a couple of three generations to me because I grew up so far away from the coal fields of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

I think we might have lost a few great uncles and great great uncles in all three of the wars but the names and details escape me even today.

I'm pretty sure my Great Grandfather Rogers didn't fight in the Civil War, and my Grandfather, my namesake Virgil Sr., was too young to fight in WWI. He was also given a deference for military service in WWII and the Korean War because of the importance of coal mining to the military effort and industrial production.

My Father was in ROTC in college and did four years in the Army going to flight school between the Korean War and Vietnam. Later he served as a civilian test pilot during Vietnam, thereby avoiding the bullets and land mines in the Asian rice patties but still risking his life and limb on every flight while proving concepts for secret airborne weaponry imaging systems and reconnaissance gathering devices which saved thousands if not tens of thousands of lives in the battlefield.

Both of my uncles on Dad's side of the family did time in the Army during Vietnam but their MOS's allowed them to stay stateside rather than deploying to where the fighting was.

And ME???

My lazy disrespectful butt volunteered and did two years of Navy reserve time back in the late 1970's after the hostilities had ended in Vietnam.

I risked life and limb on a frequent basis in saloons near the NAS in Pensacola, representing our ROTC unit in New Orleans at Mardi Gras, and for a short while on a Helicopter Carrier in the Philippines.

I don't know it was luck or the hand of God or what, but today I celebrate our military success and my family members' ability to survive and return home after their service. But just because our own family has been so lucky doesn't mean that I don't respect those who died and the family members who gather today to remember their loved ones.

Growing up during the Vietnam war in a town outside the gates of the Army's helicopter pilot training center at Ft. Rucker, Alabama caused me to know several dozen kids around me in school that lost fathers and/or brothers in the war effort.

My dad knew even more people personally who died in copter and plane crashes both overseas and on the test ranges at Ft. Rucker. I remember seeing a couple of young pilots at a 4th of July picnic at Ft. Rucker and hearing that they were dead within the very next month.

Things like that sort of stick with you when you can put a face with a name and a wife and a Kid's image with the news story...

...and it pisses me off when the warped religious fanatics and the sniveling booger eating anti-war pacifists bring their protests to funerals and military bases on holidays like today.

I wouldn't change places with anyone that's served in combat, but I damn sure appreciate every one of their efforts--live and dead--and hope that today's ceremonies give their families and friends some comfort and recognition for their sacrifice.

Now it's time to go check on my Butt (photos to follow...)