Veterans Day

[visaveteran 1]

Happy Veterans Day to our RUB vets...and welcome home!

I know we have some vets on the forum like Slim and others, myself included. Thank you for your service to America.

Edited November 11, 2010 by visaveteran

[Brad and Vika 129]

Thanks VV, and I want to add a happy belated birthday to all of us former Marines.

[LvivLovers 39]

Thank you very much all who have served!!! You are what makes America possible and we all owe a debt of gratitude!

[Barbara J 115]

Thank you very much all who have served!!! You are what makes America possible and we all owe a debt of gratitude!

Happy Veterans day to all who are serving and who served especially my husband for serving his country 26 years and 26 days I love you

[baron555 934]

Happy Veterans Day to our RUB vets...and welcome home!

I know we have some vets on the forum like Slim and others, myself included. Thank you for your service to America.

Yes, thank you to all you veterans. Thank you for allowing us to be able to have our spouses with us.

I am just sorry I can not get out of work today to go to the range and use my M1 and Mosin in salute to those who gave their lives for our happiness.

[slim 1,514]

Thanks, guys. And right back atcha! Happy birthday USMC.

I've been hearing all this patriotic hooplah the last couple of days and I think it's high time I remind my wife that today is my 8 March.

[pepper 34]

Happy Veterans Day to my hubby!! Im proud of you!!

[WARREN-IRINA 1]

To all the vets have a HAPPY VETERANS DAY... THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE !!!

I say this from the bottom of my heart as member of a family that celebrated 381 years in America this year.

Though I hated most of the 18 months spent on Okinawa Dec 66 to May 68 I hope we at 2nd Log were able give the troops in Vietnam all the supplies they needed.

If anyone was or knows of anyone TDY on the Typhoon Jean disaster mission to Saipan (Easter Sunday 68) with me I would like to hear from you. Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force plus the Coast Guard unit that was stationed there.I am told that work is a big reason why the MARIANAS are now a US Commonwealth. The most embarrassing soft ball game ever was when the native school kids beat(I mean very,very badly)our combined Army (including 3 Green Berets), Coast Guard team (Loran Station)a few days before we left.

[Used to be broken 143]

To all the vets have a HAPPY VETERANS DAY... THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE !!!

I say this from the bottom of my heart as member of a family that celebrated 381 years in America this year.

Happy Vets day, and hopefully all our Vets including myself will be reunited with spouses soon !

[1HappyGuy 45]

Belated thank you to all my fellow veterans. I spent the day in a classroom without any mention of Veteran's Day until the end. And then it was only in reference to the traffic probably being lighter because of Veteran's Day.

I'm going to meet up with another fellow vet today for a drink to each other and to all of our fellow vets. He served in Korea in the 60's and I got Vietnam.

Thanks to all of your that have served our country.

[slim 1,514]

I want to say a big thanks to all of you who served in Vietnam. I know you guys got the short end of the stick for a long, long, loooong time while the country sh!t on you and your service. I'm glad civilians have finally pulled their heads out of their @$$es and started thanking our vets again. I remind them whenever they thank someone for Iraq and/or Afghanistan they need to go back and thank someone for Vietnam.

The most embarrassing soft ball game ever was when the native school kids beat(I mean very,very badly)our combined Army (including 3 Green Berets), Coast Guard team (Loran Station)a few days before we left.

Was there at least some alcohol involved?

[WARREN-IRINA 1]

NO alcohol at all. Orders from the Warrant Officer and Sargent Hills. This group of kids were middle through high school and we were told we were to display ourselves as America's best. Better be perfect language too. We were camped at the school grounds so some were on duty as we worked one day on next off. Those older ones off filled in for younger guys who wanted to play that were working.

As for drinking a few beer at night on the night off we could but.. The Red Cross brought us free beer but the guys at the Coast Guard Loran Weather station told us that emergence supply's came before we arrived and they started giving the natives islanders 12 oz. cans of water only for the Red Cross to tell them it was 10 cents a can to the islanders. Most of us were pissed at the Red Cross over this so we sent most of the Red Cross beer out with the food.

There was an American that owned a bar and he told us to come down. They only way that you could pay for the beer in his bar was to tip the waitress and she told us she didn't want it.

Our job as to feed up to 2300 people 3 times a day out of an army field tent kitchen. Navy re-con aircraft photos estimated Typhoon Jean winds at in excess of 200 knots. Coasts Guard said the wind did not get bad until after their wind speed indicator broke at 125 knots.

[slim 1,514]

Wow!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Belated Happy Veterens Day! I am not a vet myself but the son of a career Army guy who spent Christmas Eve 1944 face down in the snow in Belgium, all burned up, hoping his family would not think of Christmas as the day he died. He also said he probably would have lived longer if he hadn't slept under tanks that winter.

For those us us that are married to FSU women I can say that one of the things I always appreciated about the FSU is they haven't forgotten their WW2 heros. They are STILL heros.

Thank you all.

[visaveteran 1]

Belated Happy Veterens Day! I am not a vet myself but the son of a career Army guy who spent Christmas Eve 1944 face down in the snow in Belgium, all burned up, hoping his family would not think of Christmas as the day he died. He also said he probably would have lived longer if he hadn't slept under tanks that winter.

For those us us that are married to FSU women I can say that one of the things I always appreciated about the FSU is they haven't forgotten their WW2 heros. They are STILL heros.

Thank you all.

Gary, I want to salute your father for his service and heroism in the Battle of the Bulge.

However, I must differ with your view of the FSU and the honoring of its vets. I say this feeling that "honoring" is best shown through real benefits and services, not parades. The Russians still have their parades for the old heroes of the great war but do little (if anything) to provide any real concrete help to veterans. Fortunately, for me and other vets, the USA has the GI Bill for education, medical health care system and disability benefit payments. For the record, I can't speak about Ukraine, having never been there, but I doubt it's much different. So, I don't give the Russians much credit for caring about their vets.

My wife's son served his Army tour and got nothing after leaving. The Russians don't even pay their "draftees" any money during their time of military service beyond monthly "cigarette money." And afterward, no GI Bill for them. No nothing. Many older vets and younger ones are homeless and live on park benches. I think Russia offered cheaper flats and other benefits for WWII vets under Brezhnev but that ended when he died.

And, like the Vietnam vets, the Russian Afghanistan War vets suffer from having been ordered to withdraw from the battle in shame, and the issues that provokes in combat vets. My guess is the Russian higher ups were not too happy with these soldiers, despite the fact that pulling out of the war was not of their doing. There are reports of these same vets suffering from the effects we call PTSD. I doubt there are any parades for these vets just as there were none for the Vietnam vets...at least not until Ronald Reagan became the first president to openly honor Vietnam vets and referred to the war as an "honorable cause." Since then, the public began to offer Vietnam vets a measure of respect and that process has grown and continued until the present. Three Vietnam vets have run for President: Al Gore, John Kerry and John McCain. I guess we've come a long way from the "Rambo" image of who we are.

As an interesting aside, I had a personal connection with a Russian vet a few years ago, I met this Russian man (an older boyfriend of my wife's friend). My wife and I met up with this couple and went for a car ride up into the beautiful Siberian mountains. During the ride, this guy kept saying to me: "we are comrades." His English was not great but he kept saying "we are comrades." I didn't understand until he explained that he was a Russian "Vietnam vet." He said: "After America left Vietnam, we (the Russian military) entered it." I really never heard much about the Russian military being in Vietnam after we withdrew, but obviously there are, indeed, Russian Vietnam vets. I found it amusing that he called me comrade given I took a bullet from a Russian made AK-47 through my leg. Thanks, comrade!