Wind Beneath Our Wings

WIND BENEATH OUR WINGS

I have a strange position in all of this!

I’m a Marine, so I guess I understand a whole lot more then most wives do. But as nobody trained the “Warrior” to come home; nobody trained the family about how to help the one they loved.

For every Nam Vet struggling with this, there is a family at a loss at what to do. For every Vet living on the street there is a family torn apart and in pain, wondering were their loved one is, or how they failed to help. For no matter what is said there is always that feeling, “where did I fail to understand.” For you see, no one really cared about the family torn apart either. They’re just that, family with the “crazy Vet” for a husband, a dad, or a brother.

I fell in love with Boon just a short time after he came back from Nam. We have been married for 32 years. I look back on the first few years and sometimes wonder how we survived but to do anything else was not an option. I never really understood what was going on. I just tried to cope with each day as it came.

No one told me about the “1000 yard stare”, night sweats, mood swings and that I would wake up in the middle of the night to find my Marine out on the streets hunting VC. What could I do? How could I comfort the one I loved when I didn’t really understand? Talking about it was not an option, so I did the best I could.

Another year goes by and another move. I waited for him to come home and say, “Honey, I quit my job. Let’s move.” My stomach stayed in a knot but I packed up and moved again. Nobody understood that I was just trying to keep the family all together. The family says, “It’s your fault! You should put your foot down...” They just didn’t understand this was not an option...

I can’t count the moves or the jobs, but we survived. Some years better than others. Through it all, as the Marines, we were; “Semper Fidelis”.

Years passed, as they always do, and in 1979 something wonderful happened... Jesus Christ became the Lord of our lives. Unlike the inhabitants of this world, he does understand my Marine and through Him a lot of healing took place. I believe He has worked another miracle through this club.

I have learned so much and I’m now able to understand so much better. All of you mean the world to me and I can’t thank all of you enough for what you have done for Boon and me. I Thank God for my family, the true example of “Semper Fi”.

Through it all we have always stood together.

Love to all of you.
BW

Nancy Preston
©June 4^th, 2000

Page created: Monday, 08 January 2001
With thanks to Charles “Outlaw” Preston

~ Music ~
Wind Beneath Our Wings

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