Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Veteran's Day (PG13- graphic details)

The other day I asked one of the residents, a Vietnam vet, what was it that he was wearing around his neck ( just to get him off the topic of his infinite and almost always not so clean self composed jokes). And he told me a story that one day he saw a 9 year old boy whose body was torn open from his neck down to his groin, with his intestines all spilled out. This man, George, said that all marines had two ampules of morphine with them at all times. So George injected one of this ampules into boy's neck, picked the boys intestines up, washed them with the liquid (water with something a bit stronger) from his canteen, and sewed the boy up with a regular needle and a thread.

"We both knew he was going to die... The boy gave me his necklace, saying this is all he had, thanking me for what I've done for him. It's not gold or anything but I wore this necklace ever since."

Dirty jokes and all, I see George in a different light now. And today, I thank George and all the vets for fighting for Freedom that we so often take for granted...

4 comments:

Barb Chansky said...

I almost cried again, but thanks for the uplifting story.

Lion of Zion said...

i went out for dinner tonight with friends visiting from london (you can see the follow up to my comment about your question today). my friend was was impressed that america has a veterans day to recognize our veterans, as in england they have only a memorial day for dead soldiers.

i just nodded my head, embarrassed to tell him that most americans don't take even a second to consider what veterens day (or memorial day for that matter) means.

Lion of Zion said...

oh yeah. my point was that its nice you realized veterens day means more than just suspension of alternate side of the street parking (not that this isn't important)

Ookamikun said...

wow
very touching story