Today, November 11, 2000, I received the following from Joni, Jim and Judy's daughter, and I think this is a perfect place to include this tribute to Jim. The maroon text is Joni's addition to the original text.
Dear Zinny,
With today being Veterans Day, I received a poem about a vet...and added to it quite a bit. I do not know if the web site for Mom is the best place for it. But I at least wanted to share it with you.
If you would like to add it there, please do. I know that both Mom and Daddy would understand. With Daddy being a "Lifer in the Marine Corps," it WAS our life as well.
Thank you and may God richly bless and keep you!
~Joni
Original author unknown, edited and added to by Joni:
What Is A. Vet?
Some veterans bear visible signs of their service... A missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg -- or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity.
Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet?
He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel. He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.
She -- or he -- is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in DA Nang. He is the POW who went away one person and came back another -- or didn't come back AT ALL.
He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat -- but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.
He is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.
He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.
He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.
He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket -- palsied now and aggravatingly slow -- who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.
He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being -- a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.
"He is the man hurting with arthritis, helping his dying wife every moment of every day and at the same time fighting the lack of military medical care.....that was PROMISED to him. He does this with love in his heart, with pride for the job he did in the Marines and in spite of the bills that pile up and the pain he feels in his heart that the future he promised his wife was not at all what he thought it would be! But he's doing the best that he can, because he is "One of the Few, The Proud...the Marines!"
He does this with 90% hearing loss from serving in Vietnam, with terrible back pain from the night crawls, the falls he took. He does this with heart damage from who knows what chemical spray, or terrible experience that caused it. He does this in spite of the tears he shed when his best friend died trying to give the last rites to his unit. He does this with the haunting memories of the death, the pain and the horror that he saw. And he still helps his country! He votes, he works for the Veterans organization and he fights for the return of medical care for retired Military. And yet he still loves his country, God and his family.....and believes in the Military.
He is an amazing man and someone that I am DAMN PROUD to call my Daddy!
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say "Thank You." That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.
Two little words that mean a lot,
"THANK YOU"
Dear Joni and Judy,
Typical Marine, Isn't he? They really MEAN it when they say "SEMPER FI!"
Love ya,
Zinny
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