Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronbo
I worked with a guy who was a Vietnam veteran. He did 2 or 3 tours and was a "grunt" in the Marines. In contrast to the others mentioned here who rarely spoke of their experiences in battle, you could hardly get this guy to stop talking about them. A day wouldn't pass without endless talk of fire fights in Vietnam. The stories were interesting the first few times hearing them, but man did they get old after a while. He had his picture book in the office for display.
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I've run across a few of that genre...fortunately they seem to be less common mowadays.
In contrast to this personna, my father though retired from the Army has no "ego wall"in the den...when he retired, he put away anything indicating he was in the military. The exception being his purple heart license plate when he bought my mom a new car a few years back for their 50th wedding annivesary...I think it saved him a bundle on ad valorem tax
Case in point. A few years ago my 5 and 7 y.o. nephews were visiting for Christmas. They had received some type of military toys and were playing in the living room. My brother mentioned to them "Poppa" was in the Army. That piqued their interests and they innocently began questioning my Dad...were you in a war...did you shoot anyone...did you ever get shot? (he did for that matter...he has a total of 18 bullet wounds in his legs/abdomen...seen/counted the scars myself at the beach when I was a kid).
He non-chalantly deflected their questions, save for "Did you win any medals? He responded by reaching into a drawer in his desk and pulling out a gallon siplock bag. From it he pulled out 2 purple hearts and pinned them on their shirts. That satisfied them and they resumed their play. Later, my brother pulled his sons aside and took the medals from them with the promise he'd save them for them.
My brother tried to give them back to my dad but dad said, "Let them keep them if they want them." And that was that.