My Father

If my father would have stayed on the farm, instead of going to flight school and volunteering for Vietnam, I could have grown up as a normal girl with a father in a normal family. My daughters would have had a grandfather, my mother a husband.  We can never know the exact trajectory of our lives, of course, or of the many lives he saved by going there, only to lose his.

Although, war serves a different purpose in protecting freedoms, I can still understand his attraction to danger, as in its own small way, skiing way too fast down the icy black diamonds, or sliding across a sail boat deck in 30k of wind can make ones heart pound, but war is a different type of danger, and in his case it proved lethal.  

As we send our troops into war, it’s easy to forget the ones whose lives may forever be altered. Or those who come back and can’t forget the things they saw.  Thank you to all who serve. 

Love and blessings to all.