First off, yes, BZ to Google. Good to praise a positive work.

Secondly, I echo Shiplord K and soxfan4life in my “Thank You!” to all of you who have paid taxes since the summer of 1972.

You let me sail most all of the seven seas, lead (well, be taught at first, and later really lead) some of the finest people I have had the occasion to have ever met. Besides steaming with up to 80K HP at my command in destroyers as my main job, I got to fly jets, helos, and prop planes (bad eyes, or it would have been my job), I shot “small arms” (one of my bosses, a VN Navy vet would say “I consider a ‘small arm’ a 5” gun!”) at targets ashore and afloat, fired missiles, machine guns and rifles and pistols. I played with really cool computer and communications networks and all sorts of fancy weapons and sensor gear. Been diving in a MKV hard hat rig, too. Got shot off a carrier at sea for a real world mission off Libya, and had an arrested landing on the other end of the mission. I’ll tell you this: Ejection seats are hard!

I’ve seen sunsets that captivate you for as long as they grace you with their presence, a sunrise over the Sinai with a red ball glaring over a sand landscape that went on forever, seen the majesty and power of hurricanes at sea, and helped in the clean up of Charleston after Hugo. I’ve seen bioluminescense that looked like lightning across the dark sea at night, and a “raft” of Portuguese Men of War so thick you thought you might be able to walk across them for miles.

The ROTC scholarship got me out there, on your dime, and GI Bill got me some more book knowledge. In other jobs, I got training that would cost others tens of thousands of dollars, which I am able to use today to help businesses be more efficient.

My very first real mentor is lost to time, but OSC Micheal P MacCaffery, USN, fed me cup after cup of coffee, while telling sea stories, that were really lectures on how to be a good officer. He took my “training wheels” off after 6 months, but it took me a few years to figure out what all he had done. Navy Chiefs: The Backbone of the Fleet. He was but one of many who decided I was worth an investment by the taxpayers.

As part of that common experience, I get to have breakfast every other Saturday with men serving as far back as 1942, to me as the youngest of the crowd of real combat vets and heroes. You know, the stories are similar, despite the separation in time, and we all get a good laugh about how some things never change.

I wouldn’t have had these opportunities without that trust and confidence of you who wrote my paycheck then, and a smaller one now.