My family enjoyed my first free dinner yesterday after 30+ years after my honorable discharge from military service, just for being a veteran!

I was in the Marines from 1974 through 1976 and participated in the evacuation of Vietnam. I enlisted at the age of 16 in Oct of 1973, started boot camp at Paris island 4 days after my 17th birthday, and go figure, my 18th birthday present from Uncle Sam was the Vietnamese evacuation - LOL

I was one of the lucky ones that didn't see combat although I was an infantry grunt with Lima Co. 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Division, but rather got the great assignment of being a guard for the Supreme Judge of Saigon. After the evacuation of Vietnam, I was attached to Headquarters and Service company in the same Battalion where I spent my last nine months as a Chaplain's clerk before I was discharged in July of 1996. I've always been very proud of my military server as an young enlisted man.

In any regard, enough about me, but in those days I didn't come home to any thank you's. It seemed to be a couple decades later that I first heard someone say thank you for your military service and to my surprise that happened at one of the annual Kent State May 4th events. I do seem to hear it a lot more these days for which I'm grateful.

It is I that would like to thank publicly thank the Ravenna Knights of Columbus for sponsoring such a dinner where they even went as far as invite vets from the Brecksville Veterans Administration Hospital!

It touched my heart that the Knights of Columbus displayed their thanks to us veterans in the form of a dinner... and that I was able to share it with my father who was in the Navy at the end of World War II!

The ceremony they shared with us was special for it was designed to remember and honor those POW/MIA's that couldn't attend.