A late D-Day salute to two cousins, genuine war veterans and heroes

I missed D-Day by a few days, but I just got some photos by email of my cousin Roger Moore from South Dakota, 88 years young and a veteran of Utah Beach on D-Day June 6, 1944.

That's me on the far right (appropriately as I'm politically somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun) and cousin Roger at center and my lovely daughter Layla and her son Nicholas next in line. Roger visited from South Dakota with his wife Delores and daughter Debbie and her husband Wayne.

We're chatting on the front porch of my sister's home in Olanta, SC, during our recent family get-together for Roger and family's visit here.

And I also met there cousin John Timothy Ratliff for the first time, that's him and his lovely wife Patricia in the next photo. Cousin Tim and Pat live in Florida and Asheville and he is a Green Beret veteran of my war, Vietnam. But he fought the real war in the jungles of Southeast Asia while I enjoyed three hots and a cot and liberty ports of call every 35 days.

The war in the jungle vs. aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer, USS Mullinnix, DD-944, are two totally different experiences. My hat is off to cousin Roger and cousin Tim, two genuine war veterans and heroes.