Worst Seat In The House: The great escape

Right around the end of school, Coach Whitmore has a football camp for the middle school kids. It is a great camp to teach these youngsters some of the fundamentals of the game and what to expect as future football players.

This is a fun camp and I like to attend to see some of the kids that have interest to play the game of football and when needed teach a few of the techniques that will be used when the Middle School season rolls around.

On the last day of camp Coach Whitmore has a Popsicle available for all of the kids as a reward for working hard and learning how to play football. As the kids are enjoying their Popsicles he talks to the kids about community and how lucky they are to be living in a great country.

This particular talk includes a message about the people that are defending the USA and other countries around the world to make sure that whatever bad there is doesn’t also need to be defended on our land.

He told them that we are fortunate to be able to play a great game like football without worrying about foreign threats here. He told them that isn’t the case in all areas of the world. He said to these kids that even during the Vietnam War there was football being played on this field on Friday nights.

I enjoy listening to Whitmore talk about what we have to be thankful for because I think it is something that needs to be said a whole lot more. But it was the words he spoke about Vietnam that hit home to me. You see, I was the only person in his listening audience that could say that those words were true since I did play on that football field on Friday nights when the Vietnam War was raging.

It has been 50 years since my senior season and last two a day practice at RHS. I remember it quite well. I also remember going home from practice and watching the evening news with my parents and seeing the Vietnam War brought into our living room each and every night of the week.

But I don’t ever remember thinking about the war when I was at practice or during a game. I guess maybe this was my escape from what was going on in Southeast Asia. Or maybe I wasn’t worried because I felt protected or insulated from the outside world.

Whatever the case may be those words that Coach Whitmore said that day really hit home with me. I know that there were former Bronco football players that were sent to Vietnam and were over there fighting while I was merely carrying a football for a first down. My recollections of life on the football field can be relived with excitement and enjoyment while the soldier from Vietnam would like to forget their memories of the battlefield if only they could.

I learned a long time ago from my dad that you always support our military. He never bad mouthed the war in Vietnam because those were our people in the fight they were instructed to do. Doesn’t matter if some think it is right or wrong as long as they are our soldiers they need our support. It didn’t matter if politicians changed their minds about war it was the soldiers that mattered more.

My dad was a wise man and I listened to what he said and learned what was right and I will never forget that. I was lucky enough to get that great escape from the real world playing football on a Friday night.

Today, 50 years since my senior year in high school, we are still in a fight around the world. We are insulated from that for the most part. But I hope that we don’t ever forget how important our freedoms are because once they are lost they will most likely be gone forever.