May 30--Memorial Day

[zyzyly]

I went out to the park and walked early, before it got too hot. We are having temperatures in the high 90s-low 100s this week. I don't mind the heat too much as long as I can get back in by early afternoon before it gets really warm.

There were lots of picnics being set up in the park. Big church picnics hosted by a couple of the megachurches in the area. Apparently Memorial Day is a big day for church picnics. I was glad to see the American Legion out there too, setting up for a commemoration later in the day.

I thought about my Uncle John, the oldest brother of my father. He was in the Navy, and went to Vietnam in the mid 60s as an advisor. I remember he came to visit us in California before he went for survival training. I really only saw him a few times. He made it back from Vietnam in one piece, and was given command of a destroyer--the USS O'Banion. Shortly thereafter he was diagnosed with some sort of cancer and died at the age of 48. His daughter told me that he had been exposed to Agent Orange during the war. He is buried at Arlington. My dad is 88 and their other brother just turned 90. I wish he could have become an old man like them.

Comments

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I was struck by his dying of an illness after the war. Agent Orange was awful stuff though the story is compelling even if his death were unrelated. I have a second cousin who survived having the B-17 he piloted shot down, survived parachuting into what is now the Czech Republic, survived a German POW camp, but then died of polio just after the war.

[thoughtsbykat.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about your uncle. It has taken years before DOD has admitted that exposure to Agent Orange can cause cancer.
It's an honor to be buried at Arlington.