Vets

It's Veteran's day here in the US. For my readers around the globe who may not know it, that is a day, called into being by President Woodrow Wilson on November 11th, 1919, which is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice which ended WWI. Later expanded to honor all of our Veterans of all wars.

I have many friends who have served in the armed forces, and many who are currently serving. I have a nephew in Afghanistan with the US Army. I have a niece in basic training, also with the US Army. I have a family of good friends who have three sons in the Army and/or Army Reserves. And their daughter is an Army of one.

I have another friend who is a Marine. No, not actively, but he once corrected me when I said, "a former Marine."
"A former Marine means you have died. Otherwise you are a Marine."
OK, Sir, not going to argue...

My dad served in the US Navy and spent the war in the South Pacific building bases and rebuilding things that got blown up.

And I? Well, I served a year in Civil Service. OK - not the same, I know. But I worked at NASA at Moffett Field NAS (closed in 94). Since it was NASA, there were experimental aircraft from the Army, Navy, Marines and the pilots were mostly Air Force. As such, I have a good idea about the rivalry amongst the branches of the service. And the crew chief I was assigned to was in the Army reserve, and was the most active in pushing the rivalry, actually creating signs and banners which looked very official, but which provoked the other branches in a friendly battle which had raged for years and which is still alive as I write.

"Never Taxi an aircraft faster than a Marine can think" was a sign on the wall of the hanger. We used "Army Spec" when tightening bolts: you tighten it till it strips and back it off a quarter turn. Navy personnel were referred to as "Squid" because it was "a lower form of Marine life."

I will not repeat the various slogans which popped up on signs which came and went on the walls of the locker room, shower room and above the urinals... suffice to say that everyone took the rivalry in good humor, fortunately, but everyone still knew in their heart that the branch of the service they were in was the best one. By far.

And you know, as far as I am concerned, that is the way it needs to be. I am proud of our military. As a country, we look good in uniform. And I am equally glad that the men and women in each and every branch of our armed forces look at their branch as the best.

Hoo rah!