Every 6 months at work some of us attended first aid classes to renew our knowledge of CPR and all the things that go with it.
The two Registered Nurses that held the classes were well into their 60's and sharp as a tack.
For over 20 years we saw these woman twice a year took the classes but knew nothing about these woman except they were no nonsense woman with little sense of humor.
The last class I took with them kind of amazed me, we were discussing the fact that using a tourniquet on a limb most likely mean the patient would loose that limb. Some of us knew this but the new class mates did not know this.
One of the Nurses went wookie at that, she turned to the other Nurse looking off into space somewhere and said, " You remember the time we had to get that young kid off the chopper and use pressure on his arm and run with the gurney to triage, our hands were numb for hours from the pressure."
I believe I was the only one old enough to realise these woman had been Army Nurses in Nam,. Just middle aged woman that saw and worked with the results of war. Without the nurse suits, say in jeans and sweat shirts, these woman could walk about unnoticed in public, real HEROS and no one knew.
One office worker has Tet-68 on his license plate, I know what that means but do people under 40 know.??
Every day we walk with Hero's, the last people anyone would think of helping us helping us remain free. Any day we walk past people in their 70's that fought in Korea, street people that are in their 60's that fought in Nam, may have saved the life of one of the people in our family.
Everywhere we go we walk among Hero's and are blind to them. That cranky old man that lives next door to you may have seen blood shed we cannot imagine. That confused old lady that bothers everyone just may have kept your father alive in a hospital after being wounded in some war.
When we are in a crowd and the Flag goes by in a Parade, the people that give respect to the flag just may be a HERO, age goes from the young kids of today in the Middle East to the few left from WW2 in Wheel chairs. We walk everyday with true Hero's.
