I remember every day. Do you? “A Marine, KIA and his family try to get home”

I love my Navy.

I love my Marine Corps.

I love my Air Force (Yeah I give em a hard time but they deserve it..).

I love my Army.

I love my Coast Guard.

I love all my Reserves that serve in all branches and the Guard.

I have been retired and out of the Navy since July 2007.

It’s been almost 3 years since I retired, and there isn’t a day, an hour, or a minute where I don’t remember those who are serving or those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

I started my service back in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan was in office.  We were still mixed up in the cold war.  What I remember most those were those who were retiring around that time who had served during Vietnam and would tell me stories about when they (the servicemen and women) would come home to people forgetting they were even serving in harms way. That there was even a war that they had served in.  When tehy were remembered it was with jeers and disdain.  We don’t have the jeers or disdain, but I can now say  I didn’t understand how that would feel as I was a 18 year old kid just starting my journey in our service.

I understand now.

Please read the story that I am going to link to.

The article was written by “Collen M. Getz” of the Washington Times.

It is probably one of the most moving articles that makes you stop and think for a few moments.  It breaks my heart but also shows me that our great country has to be reminded that we still have those serving in harms way, or those training to be deployed etc.  It is a never ending cycle.  We have to remember more other then the holidays where folks can barbecue.

Try to get involved in a Veteran or support organization.  Get involved here.  Help me help the Doc’s and families who are giving every day.

Please read below.  I am not posting the entire article as the Washington Times should and will get full credit from us.  But come back and leave a comment below.

If you would like to help us on Corpsman.com Email us at admin1@corpsman.com and let us know, we will get back to you ASAP.

Thank a Vet,

I did today already and will every day.

Darrell Crone
Da-Chief
Corpsman.com

LCPL Justin Wilson KIA

His name was Marine Lance Cpl. Justin Wilson – although I did not know it when his life brushed mine on March 25 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Lance Cpl. Wilson was not there in the terminal that afternoon; at age 24 and newly married, he had been killed in Afghanistan on March 22 by a roadside bomb. A coincidence of overbooked flights led our lives to intersect for perhaps an hour, one I will never forget.

I did not meet his family that day at the airport, either, although we were there together that evening at the gate, among the crowd hoping to board the oversold flight. I did not know that I had a boarding pass and they did not. I did not know they were trying to get home to hold his funeral, having journeyed to Dover, Del., to meet his casket upon its arrival from Afghanistan.

I also did not know that they already had been stuck for most of the day in another airport because of other oversold flights. But I did not need to know this to realize what they were going through as the event unfolded and to understand the larger cause for it. No matter how we as a nation have relearned the lesson forgotten during Vietnam – that our military men and women and their families deserve all the support we can give them – despite our nation’s fighting two wars in this decade, it is all too easy for most of us to live our lives without having the very great human cost of those wars ever intrude.

But it did intrude heartbreakingly that day at the airport gate. It began simply enough, with the usual call for volunteers: Anyone willing to take a later flight would receive a $500 flight voucher. Then came the announcement none of us was prepared to hear. There was, the airline representative said, a family on their way home from meeting their son’s body as it returned from Afghanistan, and they needed seats on the flight. And there they were, standing beside her, looking at us, waiting to see what we would decide. It wasn’t a hard decision for me; my plans were easily adjusted. I volunteered, as did two women whom I later learned sacrificed important personal plans.

But we three were not enough: Six were needed. So we stood there watching the family – dignified and mute, weighed with grief and fatigue – as the airline representative repeatedly called for assistance for this dead soldier’s family. No one else stepped forward. The calls for volunteers may have lasted only 20 or 30 minutes, but it seemed hours. It was almost unbearable to watch, yet to look away was to see the more than 100 other witnesses to this tragedy who were not moved to help. Then it did become unbearable when, in a voice laced with desperation and tears, the airline representative pleaded, “This young man gave his life for our country, can’t any of you give your seats so his family can get home?” Those words hung in the air. Finally, enough volunteers stepped forward.

You can read the rest of the article here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/28/seeing-a-fallen-soldier-home/