Celebrating the Marine Corps Birthday with a Short Run

Mission Accomplished

Run With Purpose, Finish With Pride

Happy birthday my dear, dear Marines. I must still love y’all loads because I ran another 26.2 miles for you and only you.

It was a different Marine Corps Marathon than in past years - they cancelled their in person somewhat last minute -but nevertheless, it was an amazing experience. Exhausting yes, I went straight from a long days work to hitting the pavement (and let’s not even get into my training regime) but at the same time exhilarating and thrilling.

It sounds corny, but the miles passed quickly as I went through my USMC memory box and pulled out mental tokens all the fine Marines I’ve known... Marines who adopted me as family and “helped to raise me” as I like to tell people jokingly, tho it’s mostly true.

Also the fine Marines we lost in August...

Anyways... I can hardly walk right now, but it feels good to feel this bad. Happy birthday.

Semper Fi and Hugs my Marines.

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Operation Meatball

Honoring Veterans & Connecting Them With the Youth of Today

"Sure a rough mission for us today.”

It’s been a couple of years since I mentioned my friend, Lt. Vince Losada... he was something else. His life and death was a book. I don't need an excuse to talk about him, but I figured Purple Heart Day is a pretty good one.

As you can see in the photo (my last one with him), Vince earned his Purple Heart at a pretty high cost - his arm.

On March 15, 1945 Vince was returning from his 25th mission on the beautiful B-17 Flying Fortress "the Big Drip Jr." Their mission had been Oranienburg, Germany. Within moments of dropping the first bombs the "Big Drip Jr." was attacked by flak that was "intense and very accurate." One burst of flack hit Vince, seriously cutting up his back and severing his right arm above the elbow. He told me that the arm was only attached by a string.

A tourniquet was applied and morphine pumped into him, but it didn’t look good and they had a long flight home. The “Big Drip Jr.’s” pilot later wrote, “The underside of the plane from the cockpit to the tail was covered with Vince’s blood from this wound."

After considering flying to Russia, they decided to risk the trip back to England. By a miracle, Vince made it.

"The flight surgeon told us that another fifteen minutes would have been fatal."

Photo credit: http://www.487thbg.org/ & Vince Losada

Boyd Smith, the waist gunner, wrote the next day,

“I think he will pull through. He has a lot of grit and Thank God for letting us get him back.... Sure a rough mission for us today.”

Thanks to Boyd's quick work applying the tourniquet, and the freezing altitude at which they were flying (which coagulated his blood and kept him from bleeding to death), Vince pulled through. He was 20 years old.

Photo credit: http://www.487thbg.org/ & Vince Losada

I never once heard Vince complain or consider himself to be less fortunate than others. In fact he was one of the most self-sufficient and optimistic people I've ever known (and a darn good driver too). So many lessons to be learned there.

Really, there are so many more incredible stories for Purple Heart Day. But I just wanted to share this one about Vince. Because he was my friend. And represented so well all that Purple Heart award stands for, including humility, integrity, and a wicked good sense of humor.

Thanks Vince. We miss you loads.

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Operation Meatball

Honoring Veterans & Connecting Them With the Youth of Today

Memorial Day: The Unknown Grave

Of all the gravestones in a military cemetery the ones marked, "Known Only to God" seem to me to be the coldest and most lonely. Without name, date, or epitaph they are easy to overlook, especially when surrounded by multitudes of more relatable grave markers.

But just like it's neighbor, underneath this lonely, unmarked cross lies the mortal remains of some woman's child; the light of her eyes and hope for the future, cut off in the bloom of his life. He might be 18 years of age, or he could be 29. Like his name, we don't know. Only God knows.

There he will lie until the end of time, sleeping peacefully surrounded by his comrades in arms, at rest from the wars of the world and the struggles of men. But for his mother and loved ones, they will never know it for this soldier sleeps in peace, known only to God.

For this reason I have always felt compelled to stop and pay my respects to these unknown. Lay a hand on the stone and whisper “Soldier, I will remember you.”

My great-great uncle, Private Israel Goldberg, lies in one of these lonely unmarked graves in Manilla. I think about him often and hope that on a day like this someone will remember his unknown grave. Walk by it, touch it, maybe leave a flag or a flower. And wonder who the brave fellow is that rests below.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

To all the Unknown Graves today, “Soldier, we will remember you.”

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Operation Meatball

Honoring Veterans & Connecting Them With the Youth of Today

Memorial Day with Roll Call

Grateful for spending an early Memorial Day with these 19 national treasures in Fort Worth yesterday.

Years ago when we first started going to Roll Call, the WW2 veterans were in their 80s, with an average monthly attendance of about 75 vets, sometimes capping out at 90 (almost hard to believe now we ever had that many WW2's in one room!). It's a little different now. The first veteran I ran into yesterday as he cheerfully walked in (without a cane or walker) announced to me he was 100. And the Korea and Vietnam War caps have replaced the WW2 and Pearl Harbor ones.

But the fighting spirit is the same. And as one dimpled 95 year old told us yesterday, "I'll see you next month!"

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Operation Meatball

Honoring Veterans & Connecting Them With the Youth of Today

Goodbye Bud

Goodbyes are hard. And there have been so many of late. But this one... 💔

Bud called me up a couple of months ago. Phone calls with him never lasted more than a minute - minute and half if he was feeling really chatty. But this time he stretched it out a little longer. He wanted to talk about our friendship over the years and what it meant to him. I was tearing up by the end (he had that affect on me). Gentle, kind, soft-spoken man that he was, this was an unusual display. It sounded like he was saying goodbye. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew in my heart this would be the last time. It was.

On Thursday it was my turn to say goodbye. Gathered together with his friends and fellow Marines, we gave Bud one final adieu. I patted his kind hands for the last time as he lay there so handsomely decked out in his uniform of the Corps, medals on his chest, American flag draped over his casket. He looked so fine.

Taps played. A gun salute was fired.

Goodbye Bud.

Semper Fi and farewell my wonderful, handsome Marine.

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Operation Meatball

Honoring Veterans & Connecting Them With the Youth of Today