- Right now I’m just sitting at an In N’ Out waiting for my cheeseburger.
I just went for my monthly blood test at our local VA. On my way into the building a young woman was exiting with a leg prothesis. She had lost her leg almost at the hip.
People like her make me very humble about my own military service. Here I ended up traveling over most of Europe when I wasn’t in a radar bunker talking to missile batteries in Germany.
Some gave a lot more than others; some gave all.
Anyway she was laughing and talking to her friend pushing her wheelchair as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
I have another friend whom I’ve known for years who used to be an Air Force officer assigned to a Titan missile silo. He was always very physically fit and competed in many bike century rides.
That is to say he used to ride 100 miles and even 200 miles at a time on his bicycle.
Then he got ALS — aka Lou Gehrig’s disease. But if you knew him you wouldn’t think he had a care in the world. He is always upbeat and positive.
He is an inspiration.
The VA is helping him because they learned through statistical analysis that many people who were around these missile silos and exposed to the fuel were more likely to get this rare scourge.
I guess what prompted me to post this-on my little iPhone using voice transcription-is that I know a third person who has authritis and is constantly popping pills and complaining to everybody who is in his vicinity about how much pain he’s in.
I guess we all get lessons in life if we are willing to observe and listen.
The Lexicans 
I’m arthritic from an accident in 1983. got it in both hips, both shoulders and left wrist (inter-articular fracture). The effects kept me from going beyond the midpoint of OCS. My ortho said I could take ibuprofen and make it through, but told me I’d probably lose the use of the wrist by the time I was 40 (he was a man to listen as he was Navy and served at Pensacola and knew what could happen as he had seen it). He recommended I quit, and I listened. My body has given me more than 30 mostly good years since, and I don’t have to take much ibuprofen even now. Climbing mountains, hills and hollows here in the mountains of WNC working as an Engineer and Land Surveyor. I don’t complain because it’s pointless. It doesn’t help and the guys around me would just call me a wuss. they’d be right too.
I have lot to be grateful for regardless of aches and pains. But at 62, I’m doing well. there are folks with a lot more to complain about that are half my age.