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My Profile
Retro-retrospection - 2008-10-06
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5:32 p.m. - 2003-05-26
The parade was cancelled due to rain. Maybe I should make that: RAIN. It's been raining since Thursday. SIL and her boys, MIL and FIL, and Engineer BIL and wife and baby all came up anyhow. It was good to see the folks. I'm always startled by how good looking my FIL is. At 65 he's still mighty handsome. In MIL's photo albums are some snaps from when he and she were teenagers and some more when they were newlyweds. Holy crow! Mike's dad was a major hunk. To be honest, he was way better looking than his sons. Mike is good looking for sure and getting better with age, but his dad is really something. As usual MIL had some digs to get in about Mike's hair. "Michael! It's absurd that your hair is longer than every woman's in the family put together!" She looks to her husband for support on this issue, but my FIL just smiles at Mike's hair. Career Army, my FIL spent most of the 60's and the early 70's in Southeast Asia. Two tours in Viet Nam and several years doing covert stuff in Laos and Cambodia. He was a POW for 7 months before escaping and spent the better part of a year recovering in the hospital after a rocket took out the helicopter his squad was in. He was the only one to survive the crash. His spine was shattered, his skull was fractured, and his right leg was nearly torn off. It's only recently that he's begun to say anything about what happened over there. Laconic by nature anyhow, he spent the next 2 decades after the war almost as silent as a monk. I think that's why I remember his words so well. We were at a family to-do about 4 years ago and a cousin started mouthing off about Mike's hippy hair and what a slap in the face it was to his war veteran father. My FIL turned on the guy and quietly, but forcefully said, "I love my son and I love my son's hair. You know what that hair says to me? That hair means my boy has NEVER had to go through the hell I went through. Never. And I wouldn't have it any other way. My son has hair down to his ass? Well, good." Today, Memorial Day, I'd like to honor my FIL who did come back. And all the others who did not. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart I thank you all. Today's Pick: "Ballad of the Green Berets" by Barry Sadler
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