As I was cleaning up the blog, I was watching an episode of N.C.I.S. Los Angeles and Army Colonel Gregory Dimitri Gadson was on the episode. If you don’t know who he is, he is a bilateral above-the-knee amputee and quite a motivator. That reminded me of the license plate I saw the other day and the rest is, well this post.

I love living in this area of the United States. I seem to be surrounded by greatness and I’m so honored, let me explain.

I live in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and due to its close proximity to military bases, like Fort Walker (formerly Fort A.P. Hill), Marine Corps Base Quantico, NSWC Dahlgren Division, Fort Belvoir, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Naval Support Facility Pumpkin Neck, Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Joint Base Andrews and Aberdeen Proving Ground to name a few, military retirees flock here, as well and federal government employees.

A few years ago, I was eating ice cream from a local ice cream place and as we were leaving, a black Cadillac pulled in with a very special Virginia license plate, it was the Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient plate. Turns out, at least one CMOH recipient lives in Fredericksburg.

A few days ago, I was sitting at a stop light and a Buick Encore was sitting next to me, with a Virginia Silver Star license plate to make it even more interesting, the plate was Two-SS, assuming it means two Silver Stars. I brought up the Silver Star registry and the Silver Star wiki page and I was shocked to see how many second, third, and fourth awardees there are, there is one five, one seven, one eight, and David Hackworth, who was an Army officer, was awarded ten Silver Stars.

And if all that isn’t enough, I am extremely honored to work with several Wounded Warriors.

You don’t become a CMOH or Silver Star recipient for doing nothing. They are awarded for For Gallantry in Action often for situations that put the recipient in extreme physical danger. We are talking about things like charging a machine gun nest. 

There are heroes all around us and they are all so humble that you would never know it.