Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:28 pm Post subject: Stars and nights....................

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I lay down in the prone position in the sandy dunes overlooking an illegal hotspot along the CA/MEX border. Doing this brings back vivid memories of a hard-nosed D.I. at a place called "Sand Hill", Ft. Benning, GA. I can still hear his husky voice:" Keep your butt down or it will get shot off someday. That day is now.

I long for those days, when our mission was well defined, immediate and honorable.

I click on my ancient PVS-5A's or Alphas as we called them back in the mid 80's. Ranger school is hard, but I somehow manage to complete my assigned tasks. I draw my strength and tenacity from my buddies, it is an understanding and brotherhood that is hard to define or even explain to "civilians".

Then, like a flash of light I glimpse towards the heavens, the PVS-5A's brilliantly illuminate every star that shines in the Milky Way, our galaxy, our home, for eons. I wonder if the Dinosaurs saw the same flashing constellations?

I peer back into my "night-finders", off in the distance they appear, like neon-green apparitions, groups of 5 to 6, men and women scurrying across the desert floor, What are they thinking?, Why do they continue to come?, I think to myself.

I glance at my watch, it's 02:30 in the morning or "zero-dark-one-hundred, as we used to say long ago, when I was a soldier. I long for those days, I miss my buds. I continue this non-sense for another hour or so, then I make the call, charlie-sierra-foxtrot, reporting another sighting, it's exciting, an overwhelming sense of patriotism beats like loud thunder in my heart.

I am just an American Patriot doing what he feels is right. What is truly the American thing to do................


TS77

TS77