Yesterday I was sitting in the waiting room of an office when an old gentleman walked in and sat down. I have known him for over thirty years but he lived in a town other an my own and I rarely had an opportunity to speak with him. We began to visit and I asked him how he had been and he replied that he and his wife were in the local convalescent home but hoped to go home before too long. He mentioned that he had recently had a bout with malaria, a subject that peaked my interest. Thus I asked him where he had become initially afflicted. He replied that during WWII he was in the Marine Corp. and fought on Okinawa and Saipan, where he manned a machine gun position, a .30 caliber and .50, but mostly the former. He said he came down with Malaria while in Saipan and has fought it for some 70 years, having to endure reoccurrence of the disease every month for that long. He then told me that in January of this year he had written the VA and asked for some type of assistance to deal with the disease and finally, two months ago, he received a letter saying that his malaria was not military related so would get nothing...NOTHING!! Here is a man who fought for your and my way of life, saw his fellow soldiers die by the hundreds, if not thousands, in two of the more ferocious battles of the Pacific, wounded in the process, and comes back home asking for some kind of assistance in his twilight years, and he gets nothing... I put my hand on his knee, and with tears in my eyes, tears of appreciation and regret that he was being treated in such a manner, and told him how much I appreciated his sacrifice. He tried to brush it away in his quiet, gentlemanly manner, but I insisted that he not minimize the sacrifice that he had endured. I could tell that he was a little embarrassed by my show of emotion but I assured him that my words were sincere and that I would never forget what he had done for our America. I only wish that these misfits in Washington had not forgotten what this gallant old warrior had done for them...God Bless that Great Generation...
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 14:20:03 +0000
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