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Posts: 4619
Location: SoCal | The elderly parking lot attendant wasn't in a good mood!
Neither was Sam Bierstock. It was around 1 a.m., and Bierstock, Delray Beach, Fla., eye doctor, business consultant, corporate speaker and musician, was bone tired after appearing at an event.
He pulled up in his car, and the parking attendant began to speak. "I took two bullets for this country and look what I'm doing," he said bitterly.
At first, Bierstock didn't know what to say to the World War II veteran. But he rolled down his window and told the man, "Really, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you."
Then the old soldier began to cry.
"That really got to me," Bierstock says.
Cut to today.
Bierstock, 58, and John Melnick, 54, of Pompano Beach -- a member of Bierstock's band, Dr. Sam and the Managed Care Band -- have written a song inspired by that old soldier in the airport parking lot. The mournful "Before You Go" does more than salute those who fought in WWII. It encourages people to go out of their way to thank the aging warriors before they die.
"If we had lost that particular war, our whole way of life would have been shot," says Bierstock, who plays harmonica. "The WW11 soldiers are now dying at the rate of about 2,000 every day. I thought we needed to thank them."
The song is striking a chord. Within four days of Bierstock placing it on web page , the song and accompanying photo essay have bounced around nine countries, producing tears and heartfelt thanks from veterans, their sons and daughters and grandchildren.
"It made me cry," wrote one veteran's son. Another sent an e-mail saying that only after his father consumed several glasses of wine would he discuss "the unspeakable horrors" he and other soldiers had witnessed in places such as Anzio, Iwo Jima, Bataan and Omaha Beach. "I can never thank them enough," the son wrote. "Thank you for thinking about them."
Bierstock and Melnick thought about shipping it off to a professional singer, maybe a Lee Greenwood type, but because time was running out for so many veterans, they decided it was best to release it quickly, for free, on the Web. They've sent the song to Sen. John McCain and others in Washington. Already they have been invited to perform it in Houston for a Veterans Day tribute -- this after just a few days on the Web. They hope every veteran in America gets a chance to hear it. |
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Location: SoCal | Amen |
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Location: Orlando, FL | Nice. Thanks for sharing. |
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Location: Central Florida | Wow... Very nice. Thank you, Tony. |
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Location: south east Michigan | I wish my Dad could have heard that. |
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Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | This is The politics we can all agree on.
It makes no difference if we live in a red or blue state, (Back East, Out West, Up North or Down South), we're ALL Americans and are privilaged to live in a country that these BRAVE Men & Women Fought and died for. |
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Posts: 4619
Location: SoCal | got that from Nils |
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Posts: 400
Location: North Texas | Nice work! Enjoyed it. |
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Posts: 4809
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | It ain't politics, but it's great!
Copied it to a chat site I moderate up our way, hope that's okay. We got vets too.... |
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Posts: 241
Location: Le Havre (France) | Thank's from France.
I'd also include all veterans from other counrties who gave us freedom.
And I keep in mind veterans from eastern countries. They also suffered a lot.
It remembers me a song from Jean Jacques Goldman, Carol Fredericks and Michael Jones (a famous french singer with a black chorist and an english guitarist). This song means something like that :
"If I was born in 1917 in Germany,
Grown on a ruined country,
Would I be better or worse than those men
If I were german ?
(...)
We will never know what is in our belly
Hidden behind our appearences :
Soul of a brave or accomplice of a torturer ?
The worst or the best ?
Would we be those who resist or those who follow ?
If it should have more than words.
(...)
May save you and me for a long time
To have to choose a side."
Peace. |
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April 2003
Posts: 2503
Location: Fayetteville, NC | Tony,
That's great man. I wish my Uncle was alive to hear it. He also fought in WWII. December 7th, 1941.. a day that will live in infamy! |
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May 2004
Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | Thanks to all who served so I can sit in my comfy chair and post all of the drivel that I post on the OFC. If anyone here is one of those (and not just from WW2)...thanks! |
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February 2004
Posts: 2487
| Jesus Tony you made me cry like a hurt kid.
Alright I'll hit you one right back.....
My Dad was a Korean War vet. And he told me a few story's but when my Uncle would come over to the house when I was a kid and he got telling stories about the things he saw and did I and my brother were always shuffled off to bed right away! My Uncle who was 10 yers older than my Dad. He was decorated with three purple hearts one silver and two bronze stars. He was also taken from his platoon after a devistating battle to create the First Rangers. We all hear about the horror's of Vietnam and the treatment our soldiers got in the field and in the prison camps. Nothing taken away from these vets at all, but you have to know The torments and horror's that the Imperial Army inflicted on the WWII vets was as bad or worse.
I can tell ya that war was more than the old B&W photo's and Videos or movies will ever capture.
I know I am preaching to the choir here.
I was just a kid during Vietnam. Many years later My Dad told me many of the things My uncle went through! I could make a horror movie! I was more than a little nervous about the genetics after this...It was that bad!
My Dad and My uncle Died a few years ago only a few days apart. What a blur that whole week was! To make a long and familiar story to us all let me finish with this.. Three old guy's came to the viewing (one guy, I was told later traveled 1600 miles) and sat toward the back. A whole bunch of the other Korean Vets who had come to my Dad's funeral, and who knew who these guy's were, came and got me and directed me to the back. I sat down in a chair in front and turned in my seat and they began to tell me about my uncle. Ohh my Holy God... War is brutal! I can't tell you about the body counts you'd think I was a nut. But let me tell you these three guy's were the last survivors (along with my uncle) of his whole company and I mean to survive the War not Time.
I can tell ya the one old guy grabbed my arm hard after they all told me about a few days and hours during the war and he said to me: Randy "I was never so Goddam scared in my life as the day they took your uncle off to the Rangers" "He saved our lives at least a dozen times that week and most of the other guy's would not have lasted as long as they did if it weren't for Bert..... and none of us can ever repay this" We had hoped he would outlive us all! He did not make it all the way through that before the tears just shot right straight out of his eyes!
I'll never forget it. Never! I have never felt so inadequate and utterly worthless in my life! Goddam it! I was not worthy to recieve this outpooring of sympathy,honor,debt,and lifelong admiration from these guy's who I had never met before or again! My Dads friends took them with them after the viewing to the veterans hall I felt a whole new understanding about just how real all those stories were that I had heard all my life. What horrors they must have lived through minute by minute and endured through all these years.
These guy's can still choke me up, thinking about it, just from the genuine outpouring they shared with me that night. I wish now I had spoken with them more but I did not have the words. I had no right to even speak to these guy's! All I could do was to tell them a few feable stories about watching my uncle carry two dressed deer out of the woods more than a mile on his shoulders! And some funny things I remembered but it was not enough...
That old guy made me cry that day and I am glad. I wish I could have endured great pain to help these guy's feel better.. I can't cry enough for those guy's Ya Know??? All our vets deserve better they deserve the best.. None of us who have had the LUXURY of not having to see war can not come close to understanding the bonds and memories that are formed from an experience like this.
I know you guy's all know this. Sorry.. I just feel the need to say it.
Randy |
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Posts: 5327
Location: Cicero, NY | Thanks from here too, Tony. Some things can just never be said enough. Amen. |
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November 2005
Posts: 111
Location: Southern California | Damn. Tony's post got to me, and Randy's about finished the job. My Dad was a Korean War vet, my Uncle was in WWII. They're both gone now, but these posts brought it home.
I don't cry often, but I am fighting it right now. Every man, woman, and child in this country owes these veterans so much, and so many people today don't even realize it. They take there BMW's, their big screens, and their X-Boxes all for granted, like it was a right to be able to own them. Well, I guess it is a right, but a right that came with a heavy price.
Sometimes I think it's good that December 7th is just before Christmas. It's good to get a reminder every now and then before we tear into the presents under the tree. I just wish today's young people would realize what those who came before did to ensure we all have the lifestyles we do...
I'd like to challenge everyone of us in the OFC to look the next veteran they meet straight in the eye, shake their hand, and simply say Thank You.
God Bless our Veterans, and God Bless our Troops!
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) |
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May 2005
Posts: 327
Location: Evansville,IN | I have to hand it to our vets of WWII, they endured and lived through what most of us could only imagine.
It just a damn shame our government doesn't treat like the heroes they really are.
My hat is off to all our vets, especially my dad, who is now 90, and a WWII and Korea vet. Salute! |
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February 2003
Posts: 2177
Location: the BIG Metropolis of TR | The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree, I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem.
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.
The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
"What are you doing?" I asked without fear
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts,
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me."
"My Gramps died at 'Pearl' on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
"My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam
And now it is my turn and so, here I am."
"I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile."
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red white and blue... an American flag.
"I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home."
"I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat."
"I can carry the weight of killing another
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother
who stand at the front against any and all,
to ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."
"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright;
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,"
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
"It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone.
To stand your own watch, no matter how long."
"For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled
is payment enough, and with that we will trust.
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."
* * * *
I salute my brothers and sisters here and around the world.....Most won't be home with their families and loved ones this Christmas.....
Pray God will Bless Them, and keep them safe. |
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December 2004
Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | I had an Uncle who was in "Merrills Marauders" during WWII. He didn't talk about it much. Now I know why.
Tony thanks again for reminding all of us why we can sit here and ponder what a great country we live in.
GOD BLESS AMERICA. |
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Posts: 627
Location: Cherry Hill, NJ | You got my vote. We're here because of those who served. |
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March 2002
Posts: 1380
Location: Central Oregon | I hadn't thought of posting that Tony.
Thank you & all of our veterans everywhere for the way of life we all enjoy. |
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February 2004
Posts: 171
Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma | My father trained fighter pilots at Pensacola during WW II and I've know quite a few vets from those years but never really understood why they were so tight lipped about there war experiences... Until... I read the book "Fly Boys".... There you'll get the real story as to what hell war really is... Bless them all that they could actually get on with their lives... |
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December 2005
Posts: 7
Location: Tennessee | My 83 year old father passed away this spring. He was very loved by me. As I read & listened, I cried, because it so reminded me of him. He was a WWII Navel Pilot, and one of the three men stationed in North Africa to set up the air field liason point for our allied troops. His memory of war were, in his life, his most poignant memories. I wish he could hear it, maybe somehow he can through me.
My war vetran husband was speechless.
Thank You.
Chaey |
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My political statement on December 7th
