Thankful. Or, Why I Miss My Grandpa On This Particular Day Every Year.

Today is Armistice Day in France. In the U.S., it's Veteran's Day. For the French, this day commemorates the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 when hostilities between Germany and France ceased and ended World War I. For Americans, it's a day to honor our men and women in uniform who have served their country with honor and dignity.

Up until three years ago, I would call my grandfather on Veteran's Day and thank him for his service to our country as a solider in Patton's Army during World War II. Now that I'm living in Europe and seeing some of the places he spent time in and then later revisited with my grandmother in the 1970s, I have a renewed appreciation for his service and sacrifice. He, along with those of his band of brothers, fought and died not just for our nation, but for the peoples of Europe.

To all those who have worn the uniform of the United States Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine, past and present, thank you.

And thanks Mugwump. I miss you.

Wow. Or, In Which I Stand Amazed.

When you live overseas and you don't get the news in English on tv, you have to rely on things like World Radio Switzerland or online news to know what's going on at home. It was with sadness that I read yesterday about the men and women at Fort Hood who were attacked and killed by one of their own. I've been reading some of the coverage this morning in the Washington Post and these two paragraphs, in particular, struck me:

Within moments of the [exchange of gun]fire, [Police Officer Kimberly] Munley and [Major Nidal] Hasan lay on the ground near each other bleeding badly. Hasan's pistols and several magazines of ammunition lay splayed near his body. A soldier rushed up to Munley and fashioned his belt into a tourniquet to stem the bleeding from her thigh before an ambulance ferried the officer to the base hospital.

Medics stripped off Hasan's camouflage top and began to treat his bullet wounds and pump plasma into his body to keep him alive. (Emphasis added.) Hasan and three other badly injured soldiers were flown by helicopter to Scott & White Hospital in nearby Temple, Tex.

It's that highlighted sentence that blew me away. It didn't matter that Hasan was the man who wreaked carnage, a comrade in arms who betrayed his brothers. He was, in that heinous instant, a fellow solider who was wounded and down and others stepped in and followed through on their duty.

They could have left him there to die.

They could have picked up one of his guns and shot him dead.

They could have done any number of things, but instead they fought to save his life.

*****

My thoughts are with the men and women at Fort Hood and with all our brave men and women who stand at post every day. And my thoughts are with Major Hasan and his family, too. What a sad day.