Post 800. Thank you to a reader.

One of my readers made a kind comment about this blog the other day.

He knows from past posts that I have wanted to go to Afghanistan and wrote about the troops. He passed on a link to Michael Yon's blog which I read from time to time.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com



You may have to cut and paste because the hotlink thing seems to be taking a rest now

It is a damned fine blog and Yon has actually gotten into the fray with the guys there. Yon is a lot younger than I am and he has a Special Forces background. I'm a lot older and a former artillery surveyor.

While Yon does a wonderful job about reporting about what is going on there that the press misses, my goal there would have been a whole lot different and a lot less dramatic.

I have no visions of going out on patrol where at my advanced age all I would do is get in the way of the troops. My plan was to pretty much stay behind the wire and interview the non-professionals.

My interest would have been the National Guard/ Reservist citizen-soldier types, the first termers and the junior officers that are paying off ROTC scholarships.

While the professionals are the yeast that leaven the bread, the part-timers and first termers are the backbone in a way and these are also the people that we know and see when they are home working around our towns when they are not deployed or on active service.

Sometimes I think that it is necessary for us to realize that these people are not superman, but just people we meet every day that have gotten up off of their dead asses and onto their dying feet and elected to serve.

These people are not born soldiers and there is nothing special about their DNA that makes them warriors.
These are just ordinary people that have elected to serve, and I wanted to try and introduce a few to the general public or at least my tiny little readership.

It is a good thing to every once in a while look at out soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen and realize that they were the kid that played baseball in the back lot or he's the guy that is the Little League coach that had to deploy with his reserve unit in the middle of the season.

On the other hand, maybe these people that do serve are pretty different. It is hard to get into the service these days and the majority of our young peole are ineligible for military service because they are either too fat or too stupid. It's sad.

To the reader that commented, thank you for your kindness.




my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/