heroes

photo taken may 08

Today my thoughts go to the sacrifices so many have made for us. The men, women, families, children...all sacificed.

THANK YOU.

I would like to especially thank....

• My dad who served in the Navy during Vietnam on the U.S.S. Coral Sea - CVA 43.
  
• Cary who is an Iraq war veteran and has been in the National Guard for 11 years and dutifully continues to serve.
  
• My Uncle, my mother's brother who served in the Army during Vietnam.

My Uncle Lauri who was in the Marines in Vietnam at the same time his brother (my dad) was on an aircraft carrier in the Tonkin Gulf. He sacrificed his future, the hopes and dreams he may have had and life as he knew it. I knew him as Uncle Lauri. Others new him as Larry, the best baseball player, high school sweethearts with his girlfriend, a quiet, funny, kind person. As my Uncle I remember him...........

• staying with us a lot on the weekends when I was growing up. He always borrowed my radio to listen to "oldies but goodies."


• on our rides back to his house. A home for Veterans on the cape. A wonderful woman cared for those men and provided a true home for them.


• taking walks. Always finding a "walking stick."


• calling a lot when the moon was full. Always asking to talk to my dad. If my dad was at work he asked to talk to me. More than anything I wish I remembered those talks.


• standing on my parent's porch while I was sitting there and him saying, "sometimes I just wish I had gotten married."


• as a quiet man.


• always having a cup of coffee in his hand.


• having a shy smile. I can still picture it.


• staying up at night.


• on the rides back to his house after visiting us on the weekends. We always stopped at Burger King and that was the only time I ever went there.
  

It really is the small things you remember about a person. He was my Uncle and truly a hero in my eyes. Not only for his sacrifices as a Marine but mainly because of his kind, quiet nature. He died of lung cancer at the age of 49 in 1998.