The Eleventh Hour . . .

Veterans Day.  Thanks to all who served, including my dad who endured 90 days of murderous combat in Peleliu and 90 more days of hellacious combat on Okinawa during the war against the Japanese Empire.

Thanks to my Uncle Harry, who was a gunnery control officer in Admiral Halsey's Fast Carrier Task Force aboard the light cruiser USS Vincennes during intense naval combat in the Pacific War, earning a bronze star defending his ship against land-based fighter and bomber planes during a carrier strike against Tokyo.  Also during WW2 my Uncle Bill served in the Philippines and my Uncle Bob served as a pilot in a B-26 in the Mediterranean Theatre, and my mom left her hometown in a small farming community in Colorado to go work in the West Coast war industries.

Also thanks to my forebears who served, such as my Grandad, my father's father, who served aboard a destroyer in the North Sea during the Great War.  I had several relatives who served the Union cause in the Civil War, including Daniel Webster Pierce from New Hampshire who was captured, served out the war in a Rebel POW camp and died shortly after his release from having his health wrecked during his confinement.

Thanks to my brother who served in Beirut during the time when the Marine barracks was blown up. And thanks to my relatives and friends who served in Vietnam (a Lamberton, from Georgia, is on the Wall); and to my relatives and friends who have served during the Terror Wars (a friend lies in Arlington National Cemetery who was killed in Afghanistan).