I’m a sentimental man. Always have been. But one of the things you develop in the Corps is the loss of feeling for the special significance of days. When you’re spending half your life in the field, days just sort of fade into one another.
I recall one time in particular at the Jungle Warfare Training Center in Okinawa. (see a few posts back for the video) One of my buddies snorted and said, “Look at this milk they give us! It’s been expired for 2 weeks!” I flipped mine over and saw that it was indeed expired for 2 weeks. I also noticed that same 2 weeks ago had been my 22nd birthday.
I do like to commemorate minor days, But 3 days have always had special significance to me:
April 19th
July 4th
November 10th
Of the 3, today is the single most important day of the year. Today is the anniversary of the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”. It’s Lexington and Concord Day, known as Patriot Day (though that term is mostly out of vogue when we discovered that getting blown up by Hajji makes you a patriot somehow on the recently christened “Patriots” day, Semptember 11th. I guess there was only 1 patriot at Lexington Green as opposed to the thousands of patriots in the Twin Towers)
Now, being the sentimental fool I am, I added to the value of the day. Seeing her being a patriot, powerful woman, and kindred spirit, I proposed to my ex wife on a small bridge (think Concord bridge) on April 19th. The day I proposed and the risk and fear involved in it made the day much more valuable than my wedding day to me. Interestingly, my favorite Professor and personal hero, Dr. William Ramsey, did the same. My daughter was also conceived on this day.
So today means a lot to me. It’s a day of bold decisions and great men doing their duty. I had intended in fact to make a large effort to recover my ex-wife’s heart today. I’ve had a few ideas pouring in my head for a few months and decided last night I was going to go for it. Then I was struck square in the heart harder than with a musket ball. As a wedding gift, a friend had purchased us some Tannerite. I still remember the joy of coming home and finding an unexpected box labeled ORM-D on my doorstep. For the last several years, regardless of the what day of the week it was, I would make British soldier mockups and load them with the Tannerite. It started as boxes with red felt and paper tricorns and progressed to paper mache’. We’d celebrate this holy day by blowing those redcoats straight to hell. Me with my M1A, her with her AR-15.
Well, a few months following the divorce she called me up and asked if I had that Tannerite. Apparently she felt our wedding present, which we saved for this sacred day was better spent shot up with her new boyfriend. I’ve pursued her in excess of 4 months. I’m done. I’m done chasing; in the event she ever wants to reconcile, she can come to me. And if that day is to come, it’ll come with a very long talk. This April 19th? I’m taking it back. (NSFW)
