When, nearly a half century ago, I volunteered to serve . . . . .
. . . . . it was because in my family it was tradition. As an immigrant family, my father and uncles and their extended family, to the man, saw it as their duty to serve the country that accepted them. Some were drafted, most volunteered. All served. That duty fell to me as well when I was their age and my country again called. I do not regret having done it.
Now, these decades later, I am made more aware of that service than at any time in the intervening years. I am proud that I served, even if it was in a time of an unnecessary and unjust war. Contemporaneously, in 1967, that didn't seem to be the case, even as controversy was growing.
In addition to my family's sense of patriotism for their country, there was another inspiration for me to serve. No doubt thousands, millions of others felt similarly. As a little boy living near it, there was beautiful woman in a vertigris-colored robe who spoke with a French accent about HER adopted home. We visited her more than a few times. Sometimes for the boat ride. Sometimes for the inspiration. But always did she say the same thing. I believe those words to this day.
May that door never close. NEVER. May the assault on our welcoming nature wrought by the pretender to the Presidency be ended by today's patriots. She may weep now, but she will stand. She HAS to stand.
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