Before you go -- thank you!

I won't normally post whole emails here, but this one was special --

At the store where I work I've always tried to take special notice of old-timers wearing military insignia, especially from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. I've personally known a few, who followed Patton across Europe, drove ambulances in Italy, landed on Omaha Beach, endured the Coral Sea Battle, fought up Porkchop Hill, or survived the horror that was Vietnam, and in their memory I've tried to say "Thank you" to those I still see at the store. Sometimes it's the wife or mother wearing a T-shirt saying "I have a son in the Marines" or something similar. I've seen several old guys moved to tears at being thanked, and even some folks in the line behind them stop and don't quite know what to say, and sometimes they commend me for "being thoughtful." But I'm not doing it for me.

This Email just came in this morning, and it underscored my feelings about these heroes. Now that I can see again, I'm sending it on. I think we all need it, especially now. -- friar tuck
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"Subject: Fw: Before You Go Please read to the end and then click on the website -- this is wonderful! ----------The elderly parking lot attendant wasn't in a good mood! Neither was Sam Bierstock. It was around 1 a.m., and Bierstock, a 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 WW II 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 the Web, 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. GOD BLESS every EVERY veteran.... and THANK you to those of you veterans who may receive this !http://www.beforeyougo.us/play_byg "