I came to Branson to help some friends with the Veterans Purple Heart Celebration. Friday was the Purple Heart Trout Fishing Tournament. My good friend Lamar Patton the owner of Scottys Trout Dock donates his boats, fishing poles and tackle and brings in volunteers like my friend Mike and myself to guide and help out the veterans on the boats. I figured with it raining we would not go out. I was wrong. These gentlemen mostly from the Vietnam war were ready to fish. So we went out with 5 Veterans that had received the Purple Heart for wounds sustained during war on our boat. Mike and I spent the next three hours trying our best to put these gentlemen on fish. We moved around a lot. But we had one older, maybe the oldest gentleman on our boat that sat on the front of the boat in the rain the whole time and he limited out. He was the only person in the tournament that caught a limit of trout. Needless to say he won the tournament and the top prize of $500 with a stringer weight of 2.75 pounds. It was neat seeing him enjoy himself so much. He was a veteran that was not only shot but also blown up by a landmine. How he is still alive only the Lord knows. I must say our boat having the winner made up for the rainy cold weather yesterday. We had two others that caught a fish. At the time we did not think we had done very well as the fish were just not biting. But when we got back in we knew we had done our best. We had such a good time Mike and I are planning to volunteer again next year for the Purple Heart Tournament. I was griping about the rain and one of the guys said "this is nothing, you should see the rain in Nam during Monsoon season. I guess everything is relative in life. But it sure is nice helping to bring a smile to these gentlemen who sacrificed much for our freedom and our country. Happy Saturday from rainy Paradise in Branson, MO.
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