There is a Mohawk at the Army Aviation Museum at Ft Rucker in AL, as well as a lot of other Army AC. I have gone there a couple of times. As I get older, I think of the guys who did not get the chance to do so. I help out at the local VA hospital whenever I can, but it is depressing(not nearly as much for me as for the poor guys who are living there, strike that, existing there).
I am taking a sabbatical from there for a while as there is one guy who keeps asking me to assist him in killing himself. He is a quad amputee, with not much face left, I am afraid I just might. There but for the grace of God..............
I would certainly rather have been killed than exist like some of those poor guys. Sorry if I am bumming some of you out, but I think we need to remind ourselves about those who not only gave all, but who are still doing it, decades later.
Whenever someone thanks me for my service, I thank them for allowing me to do so, and survive with only a few sctatches, and live to have another career and a half. The only thing I would change is to have had fewer WIA, of course that is beyond my pay grade.
If you would, remember those who came back, and are still suffering. Not that I would have anyone forget the KIAs or MIAs, but the suffering of the permanently disabled has to be witnessed to be believed.
Gunfighter five, out.