... Unsung heroes, those guys.
Having lived and worked among men such as these, I forget what ancient history this is to the modern world ...
We build our lives on the foundation laid long ago by strong men and women. Some achieved more notice; most moved more quietly within the background of a different time.
My own life was molded by Bill Marquardt, an unremarked doughboy who shot an American Enfield from the trenches of World War I France, and returned home safely to have and raise the child who would become my mother; by Bob Ridpath (the first), a Lieutenant with the Army Corps of Engineers in World War II; Pat Blanchard, Sherman Tank commander with Patton's Third Army who lost most of one hand to the shrapnel of a German Eighty-eight; Gene Tigges, step-father, who flew left seat in a B-17 with the 8th Air Force for nineteen missions over France and Germany. There was Bud Hicks, waist gunner in a B-24; more famously, Walker "Bud" (in our home) Mahurin, - "Honest John" of World War II and Korea, Lieutenant General Glenn Kent ... Men who drank together, played tennis and golf, cooked awful pancakes at 2AM, and who protected the ideals of a Republic and bled for the freedom of others. There was Brent Lamour - Army Spec4, Joe Calvert - Air Force Buck Sergeant, Tech Sergeant White (who CERTAINLY had no first name), and Jimmy Melvin, friend and neighbor - Marine Lance Corporal who died in the Quang Tri Province of Viet Nam, a genuine hero. Men (and in our world today, women) whose service, sacrifce, accomplishments and valor are often forgotten.
There are unknown Pigpens and Waldos and Slick Pilots about whom we rarely think, and only occasionally remember, who helped form the lives of uncounted thousands by their faithful duty . Some embraced death, that others might live; nearly all were changed personally by the sacrifice their faithful service required.
They move among us today, of course, with a contribution and personal cost which is no less significant. Some stand watch in, or high above, lonely deserts; others watch with wary eyes across the mountains of a DMZ. They walk lonely beats on dark city streets, and drag heavy hoselines into the hell of burning homes. Loving life, they die for others - or live with scars, forever changed - by the burst of an IED, the muzzle flash of a assassin's gun, the white heat of a flashover or slow death of entrapment in a structural collapse.
We live among ordinary people who are giants ... and it's right to remember.