Photographed Thank You...

Every so often, you see a photo that just reminds you of something so dear to you. The said photo may not have you in it, or even have anything to do with you, but still it captivates your memories. I ran accross one of these pictures on the internet today. I just wanted to post it and tell you where it takes me.

The gesture is that of thankfulness. I have had this situation many times in my life. Older gentleman approaching me and shaking my hand or hugging me and saying the words that no one person in uniform can hear enough: "Thank You." During my time in the Marine Corps and after, many folks have approached me and said those precious words. I hate to say it, but it always meant more coming from someone who had shared the same experiences that I had. Many of these "Thank You"s come with raw emotion and tears from men who have been through more than I ever could have gone through in my four year tour. I had always wondered why they went out of their way to say such generous "Thank You"s to the new generation of "heroes."

The greatest "Thank You" I received while in the Marine Corps came from an elderly gentleman in a suit. It was a celebration dinner for the 2d Marine Division Association. Being the dinner it was, I knew he was a former Marine and had probably been through a lot. He approached me and said, "Thank you for your service, young man." I was a Corporal at the time and had yet to go to war. I was in my dress blues. I replied back, "Thank YOU for your service, young man!" We both had a chuckle and then the mood turned a little sad. He asked me if I had been to Iraq or Afghanistan yet. I told him no, but I was ready and willing. He nodded his head in approval. He then stated that he had the same mentality when he was 16. He had lied to the recruiter about his age to join WWII. He turned 17 at the Battle of Midway. He had also raided the beaches at Iwo Jima where he took a round in a grenade on his hip, causing it to explode. The only thing I could think was, "This man is thanking ME for my service?"

Upon my return from Iraq for two weeks of leave, I received another special "Thank You." I ran through the airport in Atlanta in full cammie utilities with a standby ticket. There was a flight boarding and the next one wasn't until midnight, a twelve hour wait. I arrived just before they sealed the doors of the plane. The counter lady told me the plane was full. I accepted that I would have to wait another twelve hours. As I sat down, the counter lady went onto the plane and unbeknownst to me, offered a free round trip ticket to anyone to get off the plane. There was a volunteer. She came back out and told me a seat had been freed up. The man who took the offer shook my hand and thanked me as we passed each other. I took a seat in the last row. I made friends with a couple of small children, giving them cans of soda with arab writing on them. When the drink cart came by, the man sitting in front of me turned and asked what I was drinking. I told him whatever he was drinking was fine with me. When he got it we tipped glasses together. Then when we landed, the stewardess came over the speaker and announced that there was a special guest flying with them and to please remain seated as they exited the plane. She then said, "We would like to thank you for your service, Sergeant Sammie Meade." I got a large round of applause as I left the plane.

The final "Thank You" that comes to mind is what they call the "Gauntlet." It is when a unit coming back from Iraq flies through the airport in Kittery, Maine. The locals have a phone tree in which they call every vet they know. When you come off the plane for a brief layover, there are hundreds of veterans from every era. They shake hands and meet and greet, each one saying, "Welcome Home, Thank you for your service."

I now go out of my way to say thank you to every servicemember I meet. I know exactly where their heart and their mind is during this trying time, and I want them to know I was there and I appreciate them serving for me. I did not do that previously because I was scared that it did not mean anything to them and it was wasted breath. My advice: Don't be scared. They deserve to hear your thanks. They also deserve to know that someone is behind them and supports them.

Interesting week...

So here's my week in a nutshell. I went on a trip for my company. I went to Canton, Mississippi to visit the pharmacy a well known client to turn a circuit up and to convert them to a new Citrix farm. In layman's terms, this means they went from a dial-up connection to a T1 broadband line and they got moved to a more productive group of servers to perform their business activities on. This trip started out on Tuesday morning when I met a coworker in Nashville and we drove to Canton, MS in about 7 hours. It was a long trip. When I got there, the pharmacy closed so that we could do what we needed to do. When I went to hook up the new equipment for the T1 line, I realized I left the firewall router back in Nashville. Oops. I called my office and a buddy of mine had to come back into work to overnight it to me. In the mean time, I converted them to the new Citrix farm. Later that night, when we got to the hotel, there was an issue with the company credit card (the issue being that it is not in fact a company credit card at all), and they needed an authorization form from the owner of the card. Long story short, after tooling around with me and me making a bunch of calls, they let me in. After that I tried to log into the internet to finish up some much needed work for the site conversion, and the internet was so slow, I couldn't do my work. I started to panic because the pharmacy opened in a few hours, I hadn't had any sleep, and if they couldn't log into the network in the morning, they would be unable to work. Downtime is never a good thing. So I took a break and got in the shower and talked to Mary. After all that, the internet in the hotel had sped up enough for me to do my work, but was still very slow. I finally finished and went to bed. I woke up early (0430) and made my way back to the site to make sure everyone could log in. They could and we had a few minor issues that I fixed along the way. Later, while we waited for the firewall to come in, we went to breakfast, then back to the hotel for a nap. We went back to the site later that morning and the firewall was configured all wrong because of the information AT&T had given to our network guys. So after a couple hours trying to get it to work, it came up and we were able to finish the job. We left at around 2PM and drove back to Nashville. I got home at about 9:30PM.

This morning, I went in to work late. I got there and took care of my expense report, set up my corporate travel accounts, and signed up for a couple of travel points rewards programs. I got a call at about two from Mary that she had found her cat who had been missing for 2 days. He had a very badly broken hind leg. I cut out of work a little early to come home, and we took the cat to the vet. He needs surgery and will be getting that tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I have a local site visit at a pharmacy to finish up a T1 upgrade.



I uploaded a video of Bear chasing cows to Youtube. I think it is funny. He chases cows until they get angry and chase him, then he acts like a scared child. Anyways, Hope you enjoy.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hLwC3s7vqRU

Introduction

I guess this is my big reintroduction. I have been a blogger before, but I lost interest when I came home from Iraq and reentered the world. Life just got too busy. Life is starting to slow down again and I am getting back into the groove of things.

My name is Sammie. I was born in Jacksonville, NC in 1983. My dad was a Marine. I grew up in Ohio, mostly with my grandparents until high school. I moved to New Hampshire to live with my mom. I went to a private Catholic high school in Manchester, NH. After high school, I went to Notre Dame College for a semester before the school went bankrupt and closed its doors. I panicked and joined the Marine Corps. I went to boot camp at Parris Island in February, 2002 and graduated in May of the same year. I spent a month at Camp Devil Dog for Marine Combat Training and then went to 29 Palms, California for my MOS school to become a tactical network specialist. I spent 2 years after that at Camp Lejeune, NC. Then my last year in the Corps was spent in Ramadi and Fallujah, Iraq. When I got out of the Marines in April, 2006 I spent some time in Ohio with my family then moved to Tennessee to where my mom had moved shortly before I got out of high school. I went to UT at Martin for a semester where I met my wife. We married in December, 2006 and moved to Graham, Texas because I had a job offer. The job was not a good one, so we moved back to Nashville two months later. I have been working for a giant healthcare company for a year here and have been promoted twice to my current position of Field Services Technician. My wife and I just bought a house in November and have acquired 3 dogs and 2 cats somehow. We are both in school at Aquinas College in Nashville. I have a year or so left to get my Bachelor's.

Now that all the boring stuff is out of the way..... Here are some pictures to help you visualize my life.

This is me. I play guitar a little, and drums a little more. I also enjoy carpentry.

This is my beautiful wife, Mary.

This is our newish house. It sits on a little over an acre of land. I have worked profusely to rebuild the fencing to hold the doggies in.

This is Simba. He's a German Shepherd / Corgi mix. He is grumpy but extremely loyal.



This is Pixel, AKA: Pickle, Pix, Pixy, Picola, Picalo, Picky. She is a Border Collie mix. Don't ask me with what she is mixed, but I'm willing to bet it wasn't a smart animal. She is very lovable, but also not very smart.


This is Bear, AKA: McGruff - Like the crime dog. He is a stray that adopted us, and he is pretty cool. He is a little older and really laid back.

Anyhoo, got things to do. I will post some more later.

Take care,
Sammie