to serve a Nation

i met vic & saran nation my first year of doing inspections, it was 1990.

vic was a marine, he served in WWII, and he hopped islands starting in guadalcanal, all the way to the very end !!!

vic ran a little barber shop in redwood city, ca ... everyone there knew about nation's barber shop, he was a very kind man, and sarah was an angel.

he knew how much i loved the marines (almost as much as the army :)

vic & sarah also served the mobile home community, helping people who many times were older, had little to nothing to their name, but that vic & sarah still felt were "worth" serving ... i was honored to serve those people, their clients, because i KNEW vic & sarah deemed them worthy, and that was ALL i needed to know the truth!

so it came to pass that vic opened up ... and we talked, a LOT ... about his experiences during the war, the whole bloody way :(

i know ALMOST no one i have shared more tears with, wanted to hug so bad, to comfort and tell them everything was going to be ok, to absorb and take on part of all their pain, the kind that never washes away EVER.

it was something we both silently acknowledged ... i heard things that should never be repeated, but will, unfortunately ... felt things that made me proud, not false proud, but real proud to know i live in a place where people like vic come from ... and his recollections were so clear, my ears tuned to his every word.

he let go, releasing repressed hardship he'd harbored for decades, he was too much a man to place that burden on his wife sarah, and the friends he had endured so much with, most were dead ... and the ones who were not simply didn't want to talk about it, just like vic.

i was there, and i am honored to know i was able to serve vic, where he felt it mattered most to americans, in their homes!

vic understood all this because he fought the fight, the real fight, the marine fight all the way from start to finish!

but vic came back, and it is here where he really learned his fight had just begun ... his fight to make sure every american has a place to call home.

i remember the day he said "he would never want to do what he did again, but if it came down to him having to do it, he would do it, as long as he knew it mattered to americans in their homes"

well yes it matters vic, you've been gone now for over 15 years, and you remain to me a symbol of what it means to be an american, nothing more and nothing less, something so simple and yet so elusive.

you lived it, i will always love you & sarah both, and i know it matters to americans just like you'd hope ... we just need more leadership, REAL leadership to show us the way, the just way, the american way.

i wish i could see you once in a while vic, so you could tease me about my bald spot :)