While shopping recently I was wearing my Vietnam service hat and was was greeted by a hardy hand shake from an Marine from the same era. Not the usual thank you for your service. He asked where I served as a Navy medical Corpsman. He related he was airvaced with critical wounds to the ship I served on. Because we often ran out of whole blood I volunteered to make direct transfusions of my universal type. There is a good chance that he may be a near blood brother !
Small World
- Thread starter Pipeoff
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A meeting of the heroes. What a great coincidence. There was a former Roman Catholic novitiate in my boot company who was pre-assigned to Corpsman School at Balboa Hospital in San Diego.
I think he planed to go back to the priesthood, but had worked it out with his superiors in the church to take this detour to make certain his faith. He was the real deal, both as a future corpsman and as a man of the cloth. I met some astonishing folks in the enlisted ranks, I will say. I believe, like me, he had a four-year college degree at the time.
The joke in the military in the Vietnam era was that the ranks were made up of heroes and zeroes, and my experience turned up mostly the good side of that equation.
I think March 29 was Vietnam Veterans Day, for which my wife made me a roast pork feast. So your meeting with your blood brother was around the right time, what you might think of as a zen experience.
I think he planed to go back to the priesthood, but had worked it out with his superiors in the church to take this detour to make certain his faith. He was the real deal, both as a future corpsman and as a man of the cloth. I met some astonishing folks in the enlisted ranks, I will say. I believe, like me, he had a four-year college degree at the time.
The joke in the military in the Vietnam era was that the ranks were made up of heroes and zeroes, and my experience turned up mostly the good side of that equation.
I think March 29 was Vietnam Veterans Day, for which my wife made me a roast pork feast. So your meeting with your blood brother was around the right time, what you might think of as a zen experience.
Pipeoff, how do you feel when civilians do the "thank you for your service" thing? Do you find it obtrusive and sort of pandering, or is it a somewhat appreciated comment?
Always good to come across comrades in arms. As a vet I don’t mind being thanked for my service, though it sometimes comes across as perfunctory or a bit insincere.
My Father was an HM2 1961-1968. Thanks for your service. Marines do love their Corpsmen. Snuck my Dad his sandwiches in the brig.
My Faher was a navy corpsman during WWII. He eventually rose to the rank of CPO. He served in the North Atlantic on a destroyer escort during WWII. He saw some things. Congrats on getting to meet a fellow comrade in arms.
As a former Marine - and, chronically cranky curmudgeon - I can tell you I absolutely detest that "Thank-you for your Service" non-sense when it comes from some Starbucks-swilling, Ribbon-of-the-Week wearing, Oprah-watching, Soccer-Mom, who overhears me talking with another Vet; or, is taking my personal in-take information and asks about my Vet-status.
I look them dead in the eye, and flatly respond: "Exactly which of the specific Acts-of-Service that I performed as a United States Marine are you thanking me for?".
These self-serving, lip-service types instantly get that 'Deer caught in the headlights' look, stammer, get visibly nervous, and rather than simply come clean that they are reflexively glad-handing me some empty-headed lip-service which makes THEM feel good about themselves, instead they exit stage-left, faster than if someone lit a rag under their butt.
It sort of like publicly 'Pantsing' and exposing these trendy-phonies.
I don't even know how this disingenuous "Thank you for your Service" nonsense got started in the first place; but whomever it was needs a Blanket Party.
- Sherm 'Get Offa My Lawn' Natman
I look them dead in the eye, and flatly respond: "Exactly which of the specific Acts-of-Service that I performed as a United States Marine are you thanking me for?".
These self-serving, lip-service types instantly get that 'Deer caught in the headlights' look, stammer, get visibly nervous, and rather than simply come clean that they are reflexively glad-handing me some empty-headed lip-service which makes THEM feel good about themselves, instead they exit stage-left, faster than if someone lit a rag under their butt.
It sort of like publicly 'Pantsing' and exposing these trendy-phonies.
I don't even know how this disingenuous "Thank you for your Service" nonsense got started in the first place; but whomever it was needs a Blanket Party.
- Sherm 'Get Offa My Lawn' Natman