One small hill gramps!

That’s one small hill grandpa only thirty more to climb

I received a warm letter recently from someone we all know and occasionally respect. This warm and tender greeting was from none other than the United States Army on behalf of good old Uncle Sam.

“Dear Gene,” the letter opened. Notice that it did not begin with my retired military rank. Obviously the Colonel who sent it wanted to personalize the letter to curry my favor or perhaps prevail on my staunch patriotism.

The gist of the letter was to ask if I was interested in returning to active duty in a training capacity. Obviously I’m too “over the hill” to participate in special operations but I guess I can still jack my jaws pretty well. I was, after all, a master instructor for many years.

The letter was true to the extent that I am not physically capable of being a team member and undertaking commando raids, commonly referred to today as special operations. In fact, if I had the audacity to volunteer for such an arduous duty I would certainly need a “special operation.”
Those fond memories stored way back inside my pea brain remind me of those good old days when I could climb mountains for 72 hours straight, then conduct a high altitude jump at night, assault a target 20 miles away, then make it back to the base for a ten course breakfast.

I’ll never forget the way the base camp warriors constantly looked at us with pity and sympathy. “Poor guys,” they probably thought, “it’s awful what those snake-eaters have to go through.”

What they failed to understand was that we loved it to death. Every minute of every hour of every day, we loved it. In all actuality, we often thought of the base camp warriors with pity and sympathy. How anyone could sit behind a desk day after day, week after week, was truly amazing and a terrible thing to do.

I could just see myself back in uniform today with a special operations team. To begin with they’d treat me with kid gloves and call me grandpa, and carry a thermos of Geritol with them and an extra medic or two just to watch out for me.

I can hear the jumpmaster now: “Grandpa, we don’t have a parachute harness to fit your big belly, so we’re gonna have to use a cargo chute.” “That’s ten push-ups gramps, only 190 more to go.” “When you do the parachute landing fall (PLF) grandpa you don’t hit like a sack of wet mud.” “That’s one small hill grandpap, only thirty more to climb.”

“No Gramps, we don’t eat C-Rats anymore and we don’t refer to the enemy as Commies. Also, spears, swords, and shields are no longer standard issue, and who the heck is Jane Fonda?”
Yes, warm memories definitely flood back when I dig around in the dusty cellar of my aging brain.

To be able to do the things I once did back in the Stone Age would be wonderful. However, I have come to the conclusion that my own days of “boots and saddles” have finally left me behind. (Way behind!) It’s time to let the men I once led and taught to take over. It’s their turn, their burden, and their adventure.

One of my greatest fears upon retiring was wondering if I had left “My Army” in good hands. After all, no one took better care of “My Army” than I did.

My greatest contribution to the military was to teach those who were to follow in my footsteps. The men I taught, taught the men leading those youngsters today. I can look with pride at a job well done for our young men and women in uniform today are true professionals.

Of course, I’ll be thinking of those kids over there putting their lives on the line for all of us and praying for their safety.

But, I’ll just sit back with my Tom Clancy or Ollie North books and relive those adventures in the deep recesses of my mind.