Happy Memorial Day Daddy...

And everyone else too. Days like this take on a greater meaning after loosing dad. We're loosing the vets from his generation by the thousands every day, so please take time today to think of someone, and maybe go up to an old geezer somewhere and say thanks.



I want to say thanks to all the vets I've known, and all the guys I know now. You know who you are... Pat, Sarge, Bruno, Paul ("His Mushyness"), Buck, and everyone I'm forgetting to list at this late hour. Thanks a lot for your service, and for letting a kid like me hang with you a while. You're all the greatest!



Thanks Uncle John, for being my cool cowboy uncle, and for doing that stint in the army in the '50s. You'll always live in my heart.



Thanks Uncle Vernie, for being such a special friend and comfort to mom when she was growing up. I never knew you, but mom loved you very much, and misses you still. Thanks for those years you served in the Navy back in the 1920s. I wish we could sit together now and compare notes. I bet you saw some fascinating history out there.



And thanks, Cousin Lavern (Uncle Vernie's son), for being such a loving friend to mom and dad when the three of you were growing up. Mom loved you so much that after you died in the war she gave me your name. I'm sorry I was ashamed of it for so long growing up. I was a dumb kid, and I've been mixed up about a LOT of things for a long time. I'm proud of that name now, and I'll deck anyone who makes fun of it. I wish you'd lived, so I could have gotten to know you. We'll have to sit together one of these days and talk about all the things you saw.

Thanks too to all the guys I don't have pictures of now... Uncle Melvin, who served in the army in the WW2 and was in the Battle of the Bulge, and Uncle Bob. Dear uncle Bob. God, I miss you. You were the coolest! You served in WW2, the Pentagon, and then did two tours in Vietnam.

It sucks that you died when you did and that we never got a chance to talk about all that stuff. But I'll see you again. I'll see your boy, now a great man on his own, in a week or so, and I'll give him a BIG hug for ya. He's the best. We're like brothers now. I think you'd be happy about that. You did a wonderful job bringin' him up.

I love all you guys, and I miss you all terribly. Thanks again for all you did, and all you went through to serve your country. I'm so proud to have known you all.

I love all you other guys too. I hope you have a great holiday and we all keep chuggin' along, so we can do this again next year. Take care. Cheers!