Precious Recovery

Jannarone  – Precious Recovery

 I’m very happy the class has thedaysforward.com.  When I had a stroke in July of 2013, I couldn’t read or write.  Public speaking was out of the question.  Now I can read well in public again as a church lector.  That came back in about six months.  My speech therapist told me to write, and many of my stories published in thedaysforward.com several years later were already written by then but had to be edited.  I look forward to every article written by classmates.  We have such an amazing class, with a variety of experiences. 

     I joined the Military Officers Association of America and they have a program where officers speak to 5th or 6th graders about their military service.  I am now able to do that.  The highlight is the story of my first parachute jump, which always brings smiles.  Bob Hope less so, because the kids don’t know him, but the teachers do.  I always ask the kids to read all my stories in thedaysforward.com, and many of them do.  Several groups went of their way and made game boards of my adventures.  Usually, I have forty minutes to speak, but several times, I’ve been asked to speak for an hour and a half.  So, I carry a list of my stories to fill up the time.  It comes in handy. 

     Most of my stories are light, but when I wrote the story about Combat Related Special Compensation, I had heard that many classmates who had been in Vietnam and had VA compensation for wounds, or disabilities related to Agent Orange exposure, had not known CRSC could make part of their military retirement tax-free.  I’d really like to know if anyone applied after reading the story.