Fifty Year Reunion and Remembrance (continued)
Wisdom of Years
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They say that wisdom comes with passing years. If that is true, then fifty years means much wisdom.
"For those who have fought for it, life has a flavor the protected will never know."
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-- saying at the Siege of Khe Sanh, where most of the battalion had served.
The greatest lesson those years have taught us is this: in our youth we fought without complaint because America asked that of us. We risked much and lost too many, but we did our hard jobs well.
Death Gully on LZ Margo. Most of the forty-nine men we lost on the DMZ operation fell on or near this hill. Photo by Eric "Smitty" Smith.
And when we went back to "the world" -- our homeland which we protected and which we held dear -- we received no thanks.
So be it.
Thanks is a coin that grows smaller the longer that it takes to pay. And our countrymen paid us in small coins when they paid us at all.
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No matter. We know what we did.
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On LZ Margo and in all of our battles, we and others like us were our country's best, a fact we did not question then and do not question now, because our commitment to her was with our very lives.
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Our Willing Burden
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When our brothers fell to rise no more, those men whose unfulfilled promise can never be measured, it became our willing burden to recall their sacrifices for so long as we shall live.
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And on Sunday, September 16, 2018, remember them we did.
And remember them we always will.