I’m just sitting here, sipping on some water and watching it rain outside. For entertainment, I turned on the news and flipped it up to the CNN channel.

I keep them turned on a lot, mostly because they are more middle-of-the-road than the other news channels.

Anyway, I had fired up my PC to work on cleaning up my Hubs, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a commercial for a Veterans support group.

The difference with this one was the fact that they were using a clip from a battle in NAM, along with the sound effects.

It was just a momentary 2-3 seconds of a clip that was part of a 30-second commercial.

But, it happened again!

I was back in time to the late sixties, with all of my old friends and relatives of my generation, sitting around; drinking beer and talking about the war.

You see, my family was poor or lower lower middle class, whichever you want to call is, I don’t really care!

But, we, and my friends, were the people in this economic group were the ones that went to war and wore the uniforms, and justServed our Country.

And so many friends and some of my relatives, were the ones that never came back from NAM …… Alive!

I myself, served in the Navy, and I was never in-country, so obviously, no one ever tried to shoot me, or impale me on sharpened bamboo sticks dipped in excrement.

No one booby-trapped my friend’s body with a hand grenade, just to get one more American kill, if I moved the mauled body.

No one kicked me out of a helicopter and told me to keep my head down and “run like Hell!” while the CONG were spraying us with live fire and mortars.

No one had been brainwashed so well that they wrapped explosives around their body and walked into my favorite Saigon Bar and detonated themselves on the chance that they would kill a few of us American Imperialists!

No, I didn’t watch my buddies get killed in front of my eyes.

You see, I was thousands of miles away working on an Aircraft Carrier, and occasionally, I got letters from home about my buddies and relatives being killed, or wounded, by such acts.

But I did serve my Country and these great guys were a part of my life, then and still.

I guess that might be one of the reasons that I am still here on the crazy world of ours; to write this little story and perhaps awaken others who have forgotten. You see;

I Served and I Remember!