I live in Jasper but I work over here in Ft Polk, somebody asked me the other day why I do that.  The only thing I could think of was the fact that I was working around all these young soldiers, young just like I was many years ago.  Being tough, or thinking I was tough. Ready to go at any time.  I just love it, they keep me young, and I see myself everyday in their faces and their ways.  I tell people who ask me what it was like, the only truthful answer I can give them is there are days I had the best of times , laughing so hard I would get sick.  Then there were days that I couldnt stop crying and wondering why I was here at all.  But the good Lord blessed me, I was one of the many that made it thru the times.  Now I laugh a lot more, but yet still shed tears when I think of my buddies that did not make it.....Here to you buddies....love you with all my heat...God Bless everyone of them, I know he has.