Saturday, July 24, 2021

Warriors

Timing is everything. 

We are the sons and daughters of warriors.  Fosses have blood on our hands and souls. We only know the “recent” history.  John Fosse fought the Dutch in naval battles in the 1600's and the Indians in King Philip’s War in the Colonies, as did his sons, Samuel and Ichabod. Isaiah Foss fought the British in the Revolutionary War at Saratoga and perhaps at Bunker Hill. 

William H Foss fought in the Civil War at Bull Run and Fredericksburg. Elfin J Foss, 1st cousin of William,  died on Little Round Top at Gettysburg. Andrew Foss, brother of Hiram, was a merchant marine, on a ship torpedoed during WWII and survived by swimming under burning pools of oil. Uncle Bob Foss served in the Army during Korea.

But Frank was too young for WWII by a scant couple years. And Glen drew a high lottery number in the draft of 1970 for the Vietnam War and did not serve. Ryan and Eric grew up during a relatively calm period of history and missed the Mid-East Conflicts, Kuwait and Iraq and Afghanistan.

On my mother’s side, our family fought in the Spanish American War and WWI. Uncle Stan was in the Coast Guard off Africa in WWII. Uncle Dick was a Marine in the 50s.

On Connie's side, Joe Murphy served in WWII in England and Germany and later in Korea. So did his three brothers and three brothers-in-law and one brother-in-law, Edward Barrows, the son of the Maine Governor, died in France.  Joey Murphy and later, his brother, Noah Murphy served in the Air National Guard.

We have violence in our DNA. We have war in our veins. Those of us who “missed” the opportunity to fight somehow feel guilty that we did not serve our country...other than pay our taxes.

 And now the focus is on our potential future warriors, Davis, age 6 and Isaac, age 4 (assuming Maya chooses not to serve...) and all the nieces and nephews. The world is so different now. War is so different. Technology has advanced exponentially at the same time humanity continues to demonstrate it's disgusting inhumanity. I know their world will not be peaceful.

 I just hope their timing is good. 

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