Originally Posted by Billy Nees

I'll try and keep this from getting too long and drawn out but I don't see how I can. My Dad's garage was called the "American Legion South" because all of Dad's ( Navy Vet) buddies always hung out there. I was lucky enough to have grown up around many great men although I was too young and stupid to know it at the time.
Looking back, it amazes me how some of "the guys" handled life and others just couldn't take living. But they did, as best they could for the sake of their families and for a couple their best wasn't very good.
When my time came, I got my notice to go for my physical and luckily (for me), Nixon abolished the draft so I never went back.
The only time I can ever remember my Dad talking "politics" to me, he said that he "didn't like this whole Viet Nam thing and hoped that I wouldn't have to go". Within the next couple of days, two of Dad's buddies ( Dick, 101st Airborne he would "joke" about missing D-Day but he made it to Bastogne and Becker, AAF he spent the War in the nose of a B-17 flying over Europe and was drunk most of the time that I knew him) took me off to the side and told me that if I had to go to 'Nam, they would bust me up so bad that "they" wouldn't take me.
My "Sweetie's" Dad (Frank, USN) was off shore on D-Day on the heavy cruiser Quincy (the Quincy has quite a history!) shelling the beaches. He told me once that he didn't see much only a couple of German fighters strafing the ship.
They're all gone now and I wish that I had shown them much more respect than I did. I really miss them all.

I should mention that my son is an Iraqi War Vet and I'm every bit as proud of him as I am of these other great men I've spoken of today.