Pima mentioned the "Usual""stuff we, like most military folk, keep around the house. The shadow boxes with medals and Challenge Coins. The pictures, lithos, and plaques most have on their "I Love Me" walls. But those are memories of a"career", and I'll look at them once in a while remembering all the good (and some of the bad) times. But what I cherish the most are tucked away in a drawer of my office desk, and attached to my old flight helmet bag which non-chalanty sits in a corner of my office. In that drawer are a bunch of small American flags (the kind of ones usually on a 12-inch stick that you wave at parades), careful labelled with a particular date, the crew-mate I flew with that day, and a little symbol on the side signifying my actions on that day (think stars or bombs painted on the nose of a WWII fighter). A flag for every combat sortie I flew, which was carefully tucked away in my left breast pocket , next to my heart, while I was flying that sortie. And attached to that helmet bag? 4 fuse pins, which used to be attached to four 2000# LGBs. I made sure to pocket them from that particular day after some Iraqis sent a very clear and unfriendly "message" (via Surface-to-Air-Missile) that I was unwelcome in that particular piece of their airspace. Those LGBs were used to send an unfriendly return message, as they blew up that particular piece of Iraqi Air Defense hardware, and the Command / radar hardware supporting it's mission, into itty-bitty bits.
I rarely take them out or display them (don't want the flags to fade behind some glass, and most won't even know what a fuse pin is or what it signifies). Heck, I don't think Pima is aware of them. But to me, those are the "special" things I cherish. A reminder of "the moment" and what I did in the defense of my Country (and in one case, my pink butt).
but wanted to knock him in the head for thinking I would be out of uniform!
