RED Friday: Until They ALL COME HOME!

Today is RED Friday:
Remember
Everyone
Deployed
(Until they all come home...)

Now, I probably had the easiest duty in the world; stationed in Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt, March 1972 - September 1975, with about a half-million other troops. Our main role was to make the Soviets think twice (or nine times) before they rolled the tanks through the Fulda Gap, and it worked. We had a tense moment when they detached my unit in preparation for a Middle East deployment in 1974, or thereabouts, but I guess the threat of the US muscle did the trick then as well. So, no tissue damage (apart from that inflicted when I drove the car into the river on October 15, 1973; but that's another story).

Even so...
Even so, although I ETS'd 2 SEP 75, I don't know how long it was before I really came home. For sure and certain, that ignorant, arrogant, sniveling 19 year old who got off the plane at Rhein-Main never came back. The very SLIGHTLY wiser 22 year old who replaced him was a much better citizen!
I jumped straight out of the Army into college, but it took a VERY long time before I could start a sentence with anything but "When I was in the Army..."

What I'm saying is that there is more to coming home than just putting on soft clothing and re-learning the language of civilians. I confess: for me, it was relatively easy. It still took time, though.

So, this morning, when I put on my RED shirt,  it is not only for those who are eating in mess halls across the oceans, who check duty rosters to see what the other "duties as assigned" might be, who even this very day might have some unexpected physical, emotional, or even spiritual trauma thrust upon them.
Those FIRST, of course. They are, after all, serving as guarantors of the freedom we have, resting here in relative comfort, relative safety. Whether they are facing active combat, or serving, as I did, as a promise of the lethality that can be unleashed on those insane enough to cross the line, they serve us.

But SECOND, I wear RED for those who have not yet been able to come home, all the way.

Remember everyone deployed; until they all come home.

Welcome Back!

Peace be on your household.