A salute to all our veterans. Thanks for a job well done & the large
sacrifice you and your families made.
As many here know, my son served in Baghdad during the surge. I did not know it at the time, but my son -- Army Reserve MP -- was fairly safe. He did work 12 to 15 hour days for nine months processing prisoners into and out of Camp Cropper. Cropper being the jail for high value prisoners. My son and his MP unit processed 15,000 prisoners into and out of Camp Cropper.
There was another unit of MPs from our area during the surge. They came from a local National Guard unit. They were sent to Fallujah. They were not safe. They took something like 20 casualties and 5 KIAs out of a 125 man deployment.
The day my son came home to Holly Springs, a kid from the National Guard unit came home to Apex. This kid came home in a coffin. I did not know it.
I was riding with my biking group out of an Apex church out in the country. That day when we got ready to ride, a man from the church came over to our biking group. He said they were having a funeral. The man asked if we would move to a side parking lot to leave room for the funeral. We did. We rode our bikes away. Three hours later when we got back, there were people dressed in black in the parking lot.
Up the road came a group of motor cycles. More and more motor cycles came. Soon there were motor cycles with flags flying. As we stood in the parking lot in our soaking cycle jerseys, the hearse arrived. It was only then that we noticed the large American flag flying in the cemetery beside the parking lot. That is where a twenty year old kid from Apex is buried.
My son came home that afternoon. My son was safe.
Here's thanks to all who keep us safe. I cross myself, every time I ride by that cemetery with the flag flying.
Pax
[Post edited by Lazarus at 11/11/2019 12:39PM]
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Posted: 11/11/2019 at 07:50AM