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Monday, May 27, 2024

Memorial Day 2024

 Hello Everyone,

I love this picture when Mazey was a little puppy.  She was just as sweet now as she was then, 10 years later.


A friend of mine posted this on her Facebook page and I thought it was so significant and true.


As luck, or timing, would have it, I'm reading The Women by Kristin Hannah.  The book follows a 20-year-old Army nurse who does two tours in Vietnam.  I'm down to the last 50 pages and I've been reading when I should be quilting. This book has made a profound impact on me and it's one to be remembered for a long time to come.

The first half of the book is about her time in Vietnam, and the second half is about her assimilation back into life in the US.  

I grew up in a very sheltered, small town in Northern California.  I listened to Huntley & Brinkley every night or Walter Cronkite and heard about the horrific things going on an entire world away.  Had I been male, I would have been focused on my draft number instead of who was going to be my date for prom. I went to the local library to find out where Vietnam was located.  The World Book Encyclopedia was not updated very often, and all I could find was French Indo China.

I didn't know it at the time, but my then to be husband enlisted in the Air Force and volunteered to go to Vietnam.  Mr. Joe was a jet mechanic and they needed helicopter mechanics, so he was passed over.  His life and my life would have taken a dramatic change in the blink of an eye.

Remember freedom......with every breath you take today and every day.

Soon,

Lynn



4 comments:

  1. oh yes this day takes on a whole new set of feelings after reading that book...just finished...i too remember the pictures in life magazine every single week....horrifying....putting real people's faces to the newscasts...as i grieve my dear mom, i grieve along with the families who lost someone dear...i know now how terribly painful it is...

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    1. I just finished the book on Memorial Day. I agree with you about the new set of feelings the book brought out in me. So powerful.

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  2. Oh Lynn, I read the book in May also. Such a page-turner. Vietnam was such a sad era. I was in college 65-69 and all the "boy-men" were signing up for the Reserves to avoid the Draft once they graduated, but those who didn't go to college were drafted right away out of high school - so young and not well trained. As I look at my new surroundings in Oklahoma it is an honor to see flags for a mile or more leading to our National Cemetery. Our Freedoms are not free.

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