This one goes out to Chesty…

"There's just something special about the bond of military vets and their units."

Yes, there is. I've stood on many a Parade Field over the years, and I LOVED it when the "old guys" would fall in with us, or at least be in the audience. (I'm retired Army; 32d (Red Arrow) Brigade.)

I swore I was never going to be one of those Vets that spends her time thinking about her "Glory Days" but d@mn, it's just such an important part of your life and who you are, so why not enjoy the kinship and the pride? My three best friends are Army gals, too. Nothing can come between us, and we've seen one another through marriages, divorces, births, deaths, homesickness, you name it. ;)

I met a sargeant after he gave a speech to one of my college classes. He had no fingers, thanks to the frostbite, and no legs below the knees, thanks to 2 mortars, and had a few bullet scars from where he was shot numerous times. One of the most incredible stories I've ever heard. Perhaps most incredibe is that he was laying in the middle of a frozen field when his brethen retrieved him and put him on the "dead" truck, and back at base they started to strip him and he coughed, so they put him outside the medical tent (not enough room inside) next to a guy who, a short while later, had his head explode when he shifted which caused the frozen blood on his head-wound to break open.
The inspirational part is this: The sargeant started drifting out of consiousness when he heard a voice yell "No, wait!" He woke up, looked around, and saw no one. Fast forward to the Navy hospital in Japan, he has a pretty nurse caring for him, and as he and a buddy are leaving to go to a party he'd invited her to, she called out for him to wait for her, yelling "No, wait!" -- the same voice he heard as he was about to die in Korea. She (the nurse) was with him as he told us the story, since they've been married ever since.

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