Last week I picked up my training platoon guide-on (1982), recently entrusted to my care from Drill, from the shop where I had it framed along with my Basic/AIT Class photo.  The day after that very shop burned with all its contents destroyed. This course of events took me on a trip, kicking the tin can down memory lane. 

First, it reminded me that in the spring of 1982 two courageous and heroic Americans that sacrificed precious time away from their families to transform a boy from the Hudson Valley region of New York State into a man, an American Soldier.  This was not the first nor the last time America asked them to do so and they answered that call every time with dignity and honor.

Second, it reminded me of what is the one thing an American Soldier takes with him no matter where he is called to duty that he does not have to put in his rucksack…Music, Southern Rock Music!  From the DMZ in Korea to the Middle East, Germany to Panama, Africa to Sweet Home Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, Southern Rock ‘serves’ with our troops. Southern Rock is also the genre more than any other performing for and supporting relentlessly our troops, veterans. 

“Southern Rock is our community; it is who we are as veterans, a nation, always Red, White and Blue…