Be Not Afraid

You shall cross the barren desert, but you shall not die of thirst. You shall wander far in safety though you do not know the way. You shall speak your words in foreign lands and all will understand. You shall see the face of God and live.

Be not afraid.
I go before you always;
Come follow me, and I will give you rest.

Credit to Michael Yon for re-posting this prayer originally from 2007.

Why is this a local story? Well, the prize visitor that Mr. Berg interviewed was Ed ‘Doc’ Pepping who is a WWII veteran having enlisted soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He initially enlisted as a parachutist in the 101st Airborne,  506th PIR, Easy company… better known as the “Band of Brothers”. While in the Army he trained to become a medic because as he says in the interview, he “didn’t know whether he could shoot people”.

Similar comments about disabled access to the wall.

We got to the memorial, and our problems were not over yet. You had to walk over an area that was not wheelchair-friendly. I started to push the chair toward the memorial but had to give up. Next time, why not have the memorial alongside the concrete trail so my wife and other disabled people could view it? Having it on grass is not a good idea unless it is disabled-friendly.

This whole post seems very negative but that’s not the way it’s intended. Seeing the memorial was a good experience and brought home what the Vietnam War means.

The Currahee have recently come back home after being deployed in Afghanistan. Throughout the Currahees deployment WKDZ maintained close contact with them in particular. The radio station did numerous interviews with Major Pat Sieber that you can listen to here. Remember that President Obama wanted to offload the cost of health care on to wounded veterans before he quickly backtracked.