"Pearl Harbor Veterans" Topic

One day many years ago when I was a young boy growing up in Northwestern Wisconsin, my cousin and I were walking home on a bitterly cold December day. As we were trudging through the snow towards my house we could faintly hear the sounds of somebody calling for help on the wind. We listened intently and gradually could make out the direction that it was coming from. We waded through the feet deep snow deeper into the woods toward the little house of a reclusive man who lived out in the woods behind my house. As we neared the small house we spotted a person lying in the snow calling for help. We approached and found it was home's owner. He was so drunk that he had fallen down in the snow and could not rise. His extremities were already frozen or freezing and turning black. He was too big for us to lift, so I ran and got my dad. We got him down to our house and called the paramedics who rushed him to the local hospital. A few months later a knock at my door revealed none other than my reclusive neighbor. He had a bandaged hands and a thank-you card for me. In barley legible script it said "Thank you for saving my life." Pete. I found out that Pete was a veteran of Pearl Harbor who had witnessed the horrors of the attack and never recovered from the shock of combat. He had turned to alcohol to battle his demons and he never recovered. On this day I would ask everyone to remember the victims of war who came home alive but broken. RIP Pete and thank YOU for saving us who never served!

Hear! Hear!

And good for you who answered his call for help.

Jim

Well said!