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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: Small man with a big heart
First off, to the regular here who sent the wonderful e-mail earlier today THANKS it meant a lot. Had lunch today with an old...long time ago Gunners Mate. I found an "out of the way" family owned small town cafe. In this area, with the exception of Bob Evans and IHOP there's damn near no place to have breakfast. This year when I hop up on Santy's lap, I'm going to ask him to bring me a WAFFLE HOUSE, with a big busted blonde waitress named Martha, Alice or Trixie...one where all the menus have grape jelly finger prints all over them and the coffee cups are a half inch thick and weigh as much as a Greyhound bus tire. So, I found this greasy spoon type roadside restaurant, with a big red sign reading OPEN FOR BREAKFAST AT 6AM...It was 7:15, so I pulled in to the parking lot...tossed thirty five cents on the newspaper dispenser, grabbed a paper and went in...A woman about my age,smiled and said "Find yeref a seat and I'll be witchu inna minute...How you take yer coffee, Hon?" So I sat down...While waiting for Helen to return (Her name was Helen...All the folks called her Helen so I figured that one out on my own.)...While I was waiting for Helen to return with what turned out to be the best coffee I had in the course of recent memory, I looked around the dining area. There was a sign done in some kind of needlework that read,"To those who have served their country in uniform, freedom has a taste the protected will never know." That may be a popular sentiment found all over, but it was the first time I had ever seen it. (Don't say, "Dumbass, that damn thing is in every truck stop from Bangor to San Diego." might be, but I saw it today for the first time.) There's a lot of patriotic rah-rah all over cars today owned by people who never passed a boot camp gate...people who have sons and daughters who had things to do. more important than serving the nation of their birth...lads and gals who never learned the concept of the obligation to serve one's country and the dues owed by patriotic citizens but this family that owned this little restaurant is not numbered among them. Jack, the old white haired patriarch of the clan who scrambles up your eggs in a dented up old omlette pan has a faded upper arm tattoo of crossed cannons and the legend..."8 Inch Steel Tosser"....Helen God Bless her, served in the WAC for three years and had a sister who did too. Lee, their only boy, was a Marine who did twenty as an infantryman. The eggs were great...coffee nothing short of outstanding...service? you couldn't ask for any better... and the sausage patties were the best I ever had,..and nobody in the civilized could can louse up Kleenex white bread toast. All in all. it turned out to be a CrackerJack way to start the day....and a great place to sit n' read the paper and watch the lazy old Rappahannock River wend its' way to the Bay...to watch and hear the honk of Canada geese heading south and survey the turning leaves along the shore. The 8 Inch Steel Tosser was obviously the absolute ruler of his small kingdom and one helluva proud Dad...he had every right to be. DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1814
Location: Boydton, Virginia | Subject: RE: Small man with a big heart
Good to see you back, Dex. And how you seem to always find these old Vets, I don't know. I wear my USS Atule hat with silver dolphins everywhere I go, but very seldom run in to any subvets, or any Vets for that matter ( my wife sez I'm "trolling"). Maybe I am in a black hole for people who never had the "nerve to serve". Come to think of it, I don't know any present war Vets in my county, either.
Anywho..... "keep on keeping on" Dex!
Steamboat sends |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1608
| Subject: RE: Small man with a big heart
Thanks for your report. It made my day better. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Small man with a big heart
Steamboat, I was in an area where a lot of retired sailors and naval officers have gravitated to since it is a popular recreation spot for personnel stationed in Norfolk. The old crusty bastard was a cruiser sailor out of Norfolk back in thye heyday of the NAVY...back when Norfolk was wall-to-wall bluejackets. It's great to hear from you. I just thought that I had to forward that expression. I rode around all day with that expression repeating itself...There's so much gratuitous, meaningless, commercially produced patriotism these days...Now before folks start jumping up and down...I'm talking trunk magnets, plastic flags, and that sort of Seven-Eleven checkout counter impulse sales horsemanure....Not the "My Son's a MARINE" bumpersticker...the red white and blue service banner with the blue stars for serving family members...not the "My husband is serving in the Middle East" or "My boy is_____and he's in Afghanistan","My daughter is serving in Baghdad" bumperstickers....I'm talking about the SUPPORT THE TROOPS yellow ribbon loops on the SUV's driven by moms who told their boys that service is for ghetto kids with no future, and sent em off to college....The folks with the GOD BLESS THE USA magnets plastered on the trunk lid and no National Defense ribbon in any cufflink box in the house. Hey, that's just my take and why I really appreciate running into a nest of military dues payers like I did to day and yes, I plead guilty to looking for the indicators. Steamboat much obliged Shipmate. DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1262
Location: Va.Beach,Va. | Subject: RE: Small man with a big heart
Dex:I agree with you that there are far too many "drugstore cowboy,7-11,monkey see-monkey do"patriots out there just because it is "in fashion".Most of them woudn't know a patriot if he bought them a beer.Seems to be a high concentration of that type in DC these days.  |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2254
Location: Foothills of the Ozarks | Subject: RE: Small man with a big heart
I just returned from vacationing in Missouri where my kids and grandson live. My wife and I walked into the visitor center in St. Genevieve, Missouri (small town on the Mississippi River) and before I got one foot in the door I hear "Welcome Home Brother" from this guy about my age (62). Turns out he was in the 101st Airborne in Vietnam and he recognized my FMF Corpsman Cover. My wife rolled her eyes because she knew we were going to be her for a while. We got to talking about our service experience and he thought I was crazy to go on submarines and I thought he was nuts for jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. All in all we had a good visit and swapped some good stories. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Small man with a big heart
It's amazing where you meet them....and they are usually the quiet, self confident rascals that don't have to advertise how tough and courageous they are. They and those close to them know and for a true "lay it on the line" guy, that's enough. In the, what I call the GI Joe stores (used to call em, War Surplus Stores...for Pat McManus readers "Grogan's"just ask Chief Joe)...In the GI JOE stoes you can see T-Shirts with "Kill em all let God sort em out." "Join the Army, go to exotic places, meet interesting people...and kill them.", "Yeah though I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil...for I am the meanest sonuvabitch in the valley." "I'm a trained sniper. Run you dumb bastard, you'll only die tired.", And...stuff like "you'll be screaming my name." I was having dinner near a military instillation with a fine gentleman named Al Scott, who was a company commander in my Dad's battalion (1st Bttn of the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment). Al fought from Sicily to Bertchesgarten...got nicked in Holland and returned to his unit before they made the infamous "Jump Across the Rhine" supporting the drop of the 17th ABN DIV..No one in their right mind would ever question Al's patriotism. The restaurant was right next to a popular uniform and military equipment shop. Since Al has grown slightly infirm, I dropped him off...parked the car and returned. He was standing there reading a sign telling young troopers to get their parents to buy them (qoute) "Decent body armor to replace the lousy issue gear" and he read the T-shirts listed above. When I walked up he said, "In our day the United States provided us the best of everything...Nothing was too good for a for a forward area trooper...And Dex, look at these shirts...I can't imagine ANY combat tested and hardened troop wearing anything as outrageous as that. We didn't have to advertise how tough we were, the world knew it and the accumulation of dead and maimed elite unit Nazi's we left behind from Palermo to Berlin was our resume. There is something dreadfully wrong with a military force that has to advertise its' toughness...and any sonuvabitch that desecrates one of the most sacred passages in the Bible to convince you how bloody mean he is, is a stentch in the nostrils of good men. Sure that's not verbatim, but damn close. Al's no longer with us. His headstone reads: "MAJOR ALBERT C. SCOTT and CHARLOTTE DARLENE SCOTT, United States Army, World War II European Theater" with the appropriate birth and death dates..."And he was blessed by serving with good men, all." His friendship was a gift of my Father to me. DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1893
Location: Patterson, New York | Subject: RE: Small man with a big heart
Great story. Thanks.
I had never heard that needlepoint expression before; I like it.
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Small man with a big heart
Tom, I did too. There are expessions of equal and greater verbage that drive home similar sentiments, but what I liked about this one, was the smplistically expressed message. To me, it said in a polite and gentlemanly way, all that needed to be said about military service....and expressed an unspoken pride. DEX |
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Small man with a big heart
