[Cousin Jack]

... my wife and son, nothing has enriched my life so much as have my motorcycles. Such a simple machine, such rich and varied blessings.... from simple day outings of under a hundred miles, to continental crossings lasting weeks, we have enjoyed some of our best moments from the saddle of a motorcycle....

At seventy, my time on earth is drawing relatively short, and I recognize and accept it. I am at true peace with it. No false illusions of immortality in this old Vietnam Veteran! But I'm thankful for my long years.... I feel blessed to have had so many.

I'm thinking now, of a final flourish. A world's circumnavigation, on a machine befitting my years, perhaps even a Ural Sidecar motorcycle rig with a driven wheel, something of a worshipful trip, of a trip to see all of the sunrises and sunsets of different lands that I can, different climes and cultures. It can be done; it has been done; and we should do it..... we have toured the world quite a bit already....it would be a trip to dot all the i's and cross all the t's........ A Bucket List Under our wheels! Stay tuned....

 

[Cousin Jack]

I hope you get to fulfill your dreams. From one vet to another "thank you for your service" I was to young to go to nam in 73 but I was trained by those guys. I have nothing but deep respect for them and what they went thru.

Thank you, sir, but I have to say that I didn't enlist for altruistic reasons! Like many of the young guys of that era, I enlisted to get the hell outa Dodge, and I couldn't have shown you Vietnam on a map.....

But most of those young guys came back better than they went, and so did I, I think and hope.... Sometimes the stereotype of the drug-crazed, freaked out Vietnam Veteran makes me gnash my teeth in anger....most of us weren't that way. I had some trouble, but not much, and I got through school on the G.I. Bill, got my first serious job with my veteran's preference, and bought my first home with a veteran's guaranteed loan. I consider the government and me to be equal and even, all "faired-up." The guys to honor, of course, are the ones who weren't lucky enough to get back.... those that fill the veterans's cemeteries from coast to coast, those who molder in unmarked graves all over the earth...... And thank you for your service, sir..... a Navy Seal once told me, "all service is honorable," and if anyone should know that -- it's a Navy Seal. Anybody who raises his right hand and pledges to protect his country with his life, whether a cook or an 11-bravo, whether a Seal or a truck driver, anyone who serves either during war or peace, is honorable, and worthy of respect. MHO only....