A Memorial Day Story...

This is too short to excerpt, so I stole the whole thing.  I don't think the folks at Ace of Spades HQ will mind:

In 1983 I was sitting in the Airport in Atlanta Ga. waiting for my transfer plane to arrive. There were a lot of military people in uniform striding through the airport and I would read their ribbons as they passed.

A Red Headed Army Major in his dress greens came up to the seats where I was and I looked at his chest. I saw immediately that he had both Combat Infantry and Airborne Ranger badges and more than the usual one row of medals that all Vietnam vets had.

I saw an Army commendation medal with V for Valor device, a Purple Heart with two oak leaf clusters - which meant that he had been wounded three times, and a Legion of Merit medal. I was very surprised to see that; mostly it is Generals who are awarded a legion of merit.

Then I saw that he had a seventh medal on a row all by itself, it was crepe blue with five little stars on it. My eyes got very big - I had never seen one before.

I walked over to where he was sitting and I said "Excuse me Major." to him. He stood up and I shook his hand and said "Thank you, Sir". He looked very confused and said with a puzzled look on his face "Thank me - what did I do?" I answered him "Sir I understand your confusion - its just that I know what that is" nodding toward that seventh ribbon "Thank you sir".

He started crying - no one had ever thanked him before. Here was a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient who couldn't imagine why anyone would be thanking him for anything.