Posted on 11/09/2021 6:49:39 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT
Editor’s note: In 1993, the late, great Chicago columnist Mike Royko wrote what may be the best column on Veterans Day ever. It’s reprinted below.
I just phoned six friends and asked them what they will be doing on Monday.
They all said the same thing: working.
Me, too. There is something else we share. We are all military veterans.
So how does this country honor them?...
...By letting the veterans, the majority of whom work in the private sector, spend the day at their jobs so they can pay taxes that permit millions of non-veterans to get paid for doing nothing.
“When I got to Korea, I was lucky. The war ended seven months after I got there, and I didn’t kill anybody and nobody killed me.
...- Those veterans who wish to march in parades, make speeches or listen to speeches can do so. But for those who don’t, all local gambling laws should be suspended for the day to permit vets to gather in taverns, pull a couple of tables together and spend the day playing poker, blackjack, craps, drinking and telling lewd lies about lewd experiences with lewd women. All bar prices should be rolled back to enlisted men’s club prices, Officers can pay the going rate, the stiffs.
...- Anyone caught posing as a veteran will be required to eat a triple portion of chipped beef on toast, with Spam on the side, and spend the day watching a chaplain present a color-slide presentation on the horrors of VD.
(Excerpt) Read more at coastalcourier.com ...
And bring it up every November.
I do enjoy SOS, must be an acquired taste?
LOL, my dad (career Navy) used to make that for us six kids when my mom was sick, and we all hated it.
He had those little glass containers (I can’t remember the brand, may have been Armour or Hormel)that had the dried beef in it, and I remember being a hungry kid and stealing one of those jars out of the cupboard to munch on it...
I never cared that much for SOS...:)
I’ll take the powdered eggs and rubbery bacon!
I close my law firm on Veterans Day. We’re open MLK Day and Columbus Day, but my dad/former law partner was a fighter pilot, I was a JAG, former of counsel was a transport pilot, law office manager was an AF paralegal. None of them are still here but the new receptionist/admin is wife of an AF E-3 and my wife is the office manager. So the tradition continues.
Colonel, USAF TJAGCR (ret)
I LOVE SPAM and this Yankee learned to LOVE grits when training in the south.
I, too, feel VERY lucky that I never had to kill anyone and never had anyone shooting at me other than in live fire exercises...where being short certainly came in handy. ;)
I was mobilized for Operation Desert Shield/Storm, but the liberation of Kuwait was over and done with before my Support Battalion had to ship out, so I stayed and worked stateside.
Again, LUCKY! :)
Hahahahahahaha! There was a word I hadn't heard:
"Chankre"!!!
I miss Mike Royko...
...but I admit to liking SOS, but on burnt toast that thankfully, was always available. Fondly remembering that tracked bread toasting device that would jam up on occasion and return a burnt slice of bread.
In my Drum Corps days (Spirit of Atlanta), we had a popular bumper sticker:
GRITS-BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS
Every year on Finals morning, they served us grits.
Also Desert Shield/Storm era. I didn't have to go over there, our sister unit from Cherry Point went.
Editor’s note: In 1993, the late, great Chicago columnist Mike Royko wrote what may be the best column on Veterans Day ever. It’s reprinted below.
I just phoned six friends and asked them what they will be doing on Monday.
They all said the same thing: working.
Me, too.
There is something else we share. We are all military veterans.
And there is a third thing we have in common. We are not employees of the federal government, state government, county government, municipal government, the Postal Service, the courts, banks, or S & Ls, and we don’t teach school.
If we did, we would be among the many millions of people who will spend Monday goofing off.
Which is why it is about time Congress revised the ridiculous terms of Veterans Day as a national holiday.
The purpose of Veterans Day is to honor all veterans.
So how does this country honor them?...
...By letting the veterans, the majority of whom work in the private sector, spend the day at their jobs so they can pay taxes that permit millions of non-veterans to get paid for doing nothing.
As my friend Harry put it:
“First I went through basic training. Then infantry school. Then I got on a crowded, stinking troop ship that took 23 days to get from San Francisco to Japan. We went through a storm that had 90 percent of the guys on the ship throwing up for a week.
“Then I rode a beat-up transport plane from Japan to Korea, and it almost went down in the drink. I think the pilot was drunk.
“When I got to Korea, I was lucky. The war ended seven months after I got there, and I didn’t kill anybody and nobody killed me.
“But it was still a miserable experience. Then when my tour was over, I got on another troop ship and it took 21 stinking days to cross the Pacific.
“When I got home on leave, one of the older guys at the neighborhood bar — he was a World War II vet — told me I was a ——head because we didn’t win, we only got a tie.
“So now on Veterans Day I get up in the morning and go down to the office and work.
“You know what my nephew does? He sleeps in. That’s because he works for the state.
“And do you know what he did during the Vietnam War? He ducked the draft by getting a job teaching at an inner-city school.
“Now, is that a raw deal or what?”
Of course that’s a raw deal. So I propose that the members of Congress revise Veterans Day to provide the following:
- All veterans — and only veterans — should have the day off from work. It doesn’t matter if they were combat heroes or stateside clerk-typists.
Anybody who went through basic training and was awakened before dawn by a red-neck drill sergeant who bellowed: “Drop your whatsis and grab your socks and fall out on the road,” is entitled.
- Those veterans who wish to march in parades, make speeches or listen to speeches can do so. But for those who don’t, all local gambling laws should be suspended for the day to permit vets to gather in taverns, pull a couple of tables together and spend the day playing poker, blackjack, craps, drinking and telling lewd lies about lewd experiences with lewd women. All bar prices should be rolled back to enlisted men’s club prices, Officers can pay the going rate, the stiffs.
- All anti-smoking laws will be suspended for Veterans Day. The same hold for all misdemeanor laws pertaining to disorderly conduct, non-felonious brawling, leering, gawking and any other gross and disgusting public behavior that does not harm another individual.
- It will be a treasonable offense for any spouse or live-in girlfriend (or boyfriend, if it applies) to utter the dreaded words: “What time will you be home tonight?”
- Anyone caught posing as a veteran will be required to eat a triple portion of chipped beef on toast, with Spam on the side, and spend the day watching a chaplain present a color-slide presentation on the horrors of VD.
- Regardless of how high his office, no politician who had the opportunity to serve in the military, but didn’t, will be allowed to make a patriotic speech, appear on TV, or poke his nose out of his office for the entire day.
Any politician who defies this ban will be required to spend 12 hours wearing headphones and listening to tapes of President Clinton explaining his deferments.
Now, deal the cards and pass the tequila.
—” this Yankee learned to LOVE grits when training in the south.”
Have you experienced fried grits?
Mix stiff, pour into a buttered baking dish, refrig overnight slice into thin strips, and fry.
Frying with the bacon is good, but takes some time to bring to a golden brown.
Butter, honey/syrup, salt...
FOOD OF THE GODS!
poop on a shingle...
Ive lived in this country for 50 years and the South for 45 years and I still dont eat grits...
Yuck !!!
—”He had those little glass containers ...that had the dried beef in it,”
YES!
My father was also retired Navy (I was born at Great Lakes) and he enjoyed preparing breakfast.
SOS was an occasional treat.
Here, here.
I just spent over an hour in a supermarket looking for chipped beef in a jar.
The woman stocking the shelves had never heard of it!
For me, there was no better breakfast than scrambled eggs and chipped beef gravy out in the field. It was damn cold during the winter in the Hunsruck region in West Germany. Getting a hot breakfast in the field really took the chill off.
My poor dad. He was the last person we wanted to cook, but when my mom was in the hospital, he gamely did his best!
I just could never enjoy the SOS, but my dad enjoyed it.
He would make us oatmeal that was so stiff and solid that it had the consistency of bread pudding, and he would put a drop of some kind of dietary iodine on it with an eyedropper (it was purple!)
He would serve us Chef Boyardee from a can, and to this day, the sight of it brings back bad memories. Especially the one with the cheese sauce.
He could make one meal well, he would occasionally make Shrimp Newburg, but...I was suspicious of anything in a cheese or creamy sauce. I wouldn’t eat it.
Hahaha...a real brat like me, I see...I was born in Norfolk at the Naval Hospital!
—”I just spent over an hour in a supermarket looking for chipped beef in a jar.”
I think I see the issue? You have to do the chipping.
The technical name for this product is “Sliced Dried Beef”.
A quick search shows it is readably available here in DuPage County.
I am an ex US Army combat medic. I do not want special treatment because I am a vet. My reward was trying to keep this country safe for the generations to come.
My late Maternal Grandfather was an Infantryman in the 42nd Division in the trenches of France, where he caught a chuck of Krupp steel from a 75mm round.
He came home, was a charter member of the American Legion in the small town in Wisconsin.
He has long ago “Stood Last Roll Call”. So has my late Father, enlisted in the US Navy in WWII and Korea and Army Officer in Viet Nam.
This Armistice Day, now named Veterans Day, at 1100 Hours, I will privately stand at attention of that minute of silence, in memory and honor of my Grandfather, Father, and all other veterans. In my mind and heart, I will hear my Grandfather blowing Taps, like he did all those years of my life!
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