Thanks for the nice words.

I always want the veterans to know that we appreciate what they did.

My father told me so many wonderful stories from the war. He made them come alive as he told them to me.

Do you know that my father (who was married to my mother legally, but not in the Catholic Church), so they didn't consider themselves actually married BUT THEY WERE MARRIED ENOUGH THAT SHE GOT SOMETHING CALLED AN ALLOTMENT CHECK.

So he was stationed in Germany during World War 2. He was there for 6 months or so. He met a beautiful red headed woman. She came with the apartment (kind of like Soylent Green, if any of you saw that film).

She lived with my father for the 6 months, then when he shipped out another buddy moved in. As my father was telling me this years ago, I just stared at him. I said "are you kidding, you did this in 1940 (or whatever year it was). My father said: "oh yeah, all the soldiers did this".

I said "does mom know?" and he said: "well, yeah, but we don't talk about it". I said: "and she was okay about this". And his reply was "Well, we weren't married in the church so she figured we weren't really married".

???????????????????????????

I said "I would have killed you".

Of course, this particular story I kept to myself.

But the others were so amazing.

And all these guys in their 80's from the same unit. Oh my god, it was so glorious.

Anyway, we must support our troops.

They need our prayers.

Mel