rise & fall

Well i was watching the history channel today, and they had a special on WWII. That whole war seems so long ago. That's like a defined part in history that teachers talk about in school like it's something that happened 100's of years ago. To my surprise, there were a few different veterans that were interviewed. They were showing different clips of battles and then asking the veterans to recount their experiences. Every one of the old men had something in common- but i can't really describe it. It was kind of sad, and inspiring, and just... i don't know. Ok what i'm talking about is: all the veterans were so old that they were struggling to keep their train of thought, and articulate their words. But the stories they told were amazing. They all told accounts of how bullets wizzed by them, and how their friends died form a mortar or poison gas attacks or something. That all seemed so long ago. All of these men seemed 'changed' because they were different than other people their age. I guess a war like that really affects people for the rest of their life. I can only imagine how that would change one's perspective towards life. In the clips that i saw everyone was a young man who had been lying in the dirt, or who had just stepped off a plane that was shot up so bad that it's a mystery how it could have hung in the air. And now you see all of those men in present day society. it's just so weird to see somebody that was in the prime of their life- fighting to stay alive, and thankful to recieve letters from home. And then you see them on TV decades later - and you have to read subtitles to understand what they are saying, because they still suffer from shell shock and they don't have the strength to even hold their heads up.
I don't know why i wrote this blog. But it just seems like these veterans deserve more than the right to live. at least they've earned that right. well this has all been very interesting and stuff, but it's about time i go sit on the couch and watch more heroic stories, rather than making one for myself. jeez ---> i need to do something!
-steve