The Good Guys And Gals

When I was a kid my favorite toys were GI Joes and plastic soldiers. I had hundreds of toy soldiers and their plastic battle accuetrement. Tanks, big guns, jeeps. There was something about the classic good versus evil of playing war that appealled to me. I would play battlefield for hours on end and of course, the good guys, the Americans, would always win.

I also loved the old war movies. The Fighting Seabees, The Longest Day, In Harms Way…all of those old black and whites that depicted the dedication and perseverance of the men in our armed forces in their fight against tyranny. To this day, if I am flipping through channels and I catch a glimpse of one of those flicks I have to watch it. It doesn’t matter if I’ve seen the movie a hundred times and already know the dialogue. I just have to watch it.

As a kid, I would watch these movies and think Man, I wanna be one of those guys. I wanna be one of those men with the courage to face the enemy without a second thought. I would risk my life to save a buddy stuck in the trenches or being pinned down by machine gun fire. These guys were my heroes.

Of course, when I got older I realized that these heroes in those war movies were just actors, and while some of them like Jimmy Stewart and others joined the armed forces and did their part for the war effort, these stars were just acting out what some men had done in real life. Those men and women whose names were unknown to most were the real heroes. The ones that left their families and loved ones, went halfway around the world, lived under sometimes gruelling conditions, and faced the enemy, sometimes paying the ultimate price.

And now, on days like today, I see some of these men and women, the ones that survived the battlefield and the years, some already white haired and wrinkled, donning full dress and medals, proudly marching in parades, saluting at ceremonies while Taps is played for their fallen brothers, and I have to stop for a moment and ask myself What are they thinking right now? What must these men who went through the fray be feeling at this moment? How many of their buddies died for us, in their youth, the primes of their lives? How could they have lived full lives while having left a piece of themselves on some battlefield somewhere so far away from here?

These men and women I speak of, these Veterans, are our true heroes. And today, on their day, I salute them and their fallen brethren, I salute their families and thank them all for such a sacrifice made on my behalf.