How Blessed We Are
WOW how blessed we are! THANKS for visiting our site and welcome to the very first PRPC Blog entry.
Even as I have a panic attack each time I sit down at a computer, our new website has been up a few weeks now, and so I find it necessary to summon the discipline to sit down and start blogging. Though I've never seen one, I've heard about blogs on the news, and have been counseled by our webmaster that it's important we stay in touch with the PRPC family via a blog. That we keep guests up to speed about current river conditions, that we share what incredible outdoor adventure there is to be found here, inform folks of important changes, policy issues, specials we're running, etc.
I'll do none of that in this first blog simply because it was some guests of mine that paddled the Manistee and Pine rivers this Friday and Saturday that really prompted me to take a moment and publicly give thanks to them. And assert how truly BLESSED we are here in America.
The group, comprised of Michigan VietNam Veterans and a number of their sons, gather together each June to share 3 or 4 days of camping, paddling, memory sharing, good and bad, and then finally to conduct a flag-retiring ceremony on the eve of their departure back to their respective homes.
My son Jake took the photo below of the put-in site. On the way back we talked a lot about what an honor it was just being in the bus with these guys on the way to the river. What a privilege it was.
Unfortunately, commitments kept Jake & I from attending the flag-retiring ceremony we'd been invited to, but one of the men emailed these other two pictures taken during the ceremony. The photos show one of Vets retiring his son's unit flag. His son was recently killed in Iraq. An evocative reality check, a stark reminder of how blessed we are to live in America where every day men volunteer to put their life, their future, and their families future on the line to keep us free, to keep America "the Beautiful".
We are SO BLESSED, and the sole purpose of this first PRPC blog is to send out a big hug to each of the Veterans who visited us this past week....and to every other US Veteran, ......you'll never be thanked enough. Soon, Mark
