I grew up in an Air Force town during the Vietnam and Cold Wars. Castle Air Force Base was a Strategic Air Command Base and home of B52 bombers and KC135 cargo planes. The base was closed when the Cold War ended, and now it’s a prison – but to me, it’s still Castle. I know we hear the F18 Hornets fly over the LBC sometimes, and while they ARE screamingly loud, they’re also fast as hell and the sound waves they create are gone in less than a minute. The B52s didn’t fly every day, but when they did, conversations would cease, teachers would give up trying to teach, and you would inevitably miss the MOST crucial moments of your TV show (long before the ability to replay it) because those planes were seriously like five straight minutes of thunder… Right. Over. Your. Head. Most of my friends’ fathers served, and it was common for them to be gone for extended periods of time while they did their tours of duty. Sometimes, though, they were gone longer than they were supposed to be. The chilling black and white POW/MIA flags flew over too many homes during my childhood. I remember the local record store sold POW/MIA bracelets that you could buy to show your solidarity with the families of missing airmen. Vietnam was not a popular war… they used Agent Orange, we used napalm, they tortured prisoners, we flew secret bombing runs over Cambodia. But I feel like I grew up in a place where, whether you respected the government’s decision to involve us in that conflict or not, everyone respected and appreciated the men and women (really, mostly men back then) who actually served – as well as their families, who also made tremendous sacrifices. I’m Buddhist, and since world peace is our primary goal, I hope someday there will be a world without war and without the need for people to serve in a military capacity. But we aren’t there yet, and in keeping with the respect and appreciation towards the military that I grew up with, I just wanted to say thank you to all the men and women who have served (or are serving) in any branch of our military. And thank you to their families, as well. Happy Veteran’s Day.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 15:35:30 +0000
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