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ABOUT THE BOOK
The History of San Diego is a seven volume series covering the history of San Diego from the time of European exploration through 1970. The first book begins with Native Americans in the San Diego region before European colonization. These books were originally commissioned by James S. Copley and subsequently by Helen K. Copley, of the Copley Newspapers. They were all written by Richard F. Pourade, editor emeritus of The San Diego Union, one of the Copley newspapers, and were published between 1960 and 1977.
The complete text of The History of San Diego: v.4 The Glory Years, 1865-1899 is presented here and can be navigated in the sidebar. A hard copy is available on site in the Research Library and contains many images and an index.
Walsh The “Glory Years” decals and graphics Here’s the finished decal application. Window openings trimmed and excess material rolled back using decal softening sol. Minor paint touch up. The complete text of The History of San Diego: v.4 The Glory Years, 1865-1899 is presented here and can be navigated in the sidebar. A hard copy is available on site in the Research Library and contains many images and an index. Return to Books to navigate the other six volumes in this series. Definition of glory days/years: a time in the past that is remembered for great success or happiness The team's glory days are long gone. His glory years as an actor are now far behind him. Learn More about glory days/years. For years and years now attending assemblies and other performances that included our daughter, always meant we a. Would not see her as she had positioned herself safely on the back row, even tough she is not particularly tall, or b. Her teacher would put her on the first row, as she is not particularly tall, and she would sing with her mouth.
Return to Books to navigate the other six volumes in this series.
The complete text of the Pourade series is presented here with the express permission of the Copley Press. All text and images are Copyright © Union-Tribune Publishing Company or Copley Press, unless otherwise noted.
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THE GLORY YEARS
Background
Ch. 1 It All Began With Father Horton
Ch. 2 Move Over, San Francisco!
Ch. 3 The Train That Never Came
Ch. 4 The Mountain That Spouted Gold
Ch. 5 The Panic That Broke the Bubble
Ch. 6 The Great Tidelands Robbery
Ch. 7 The Day the Town Went Wild
Ch. 8 Why Not Sell the Climate?
Ch. 9 The Big Gun Fight at Campo
Ch. 10 The Discontented Seventies
Ch. 11 The Train That Finally Came
Ch. 12 A Boom Nobody Would Believe
Ch. 13 When the Games Ran All Night
Ch. 14 Our ‘Innocent’ Lambs Are Sheared
Ch. 15 The Town That Wouldn’t Give Up
Chronology
Historical Statistics
So, you’ve finally left the military. You’ve completed your service honorably, be that four years or 20. You’ve sacrificed plenty, and watched others do the same or more. You’ve been there, done that, and gotten more t-shirts than can fit in your closet.
That doesn’t mean you have to wear those t-shirts every day.
The memories those t-shirts recall aren’t the best days of your life. Or at least they don’t have to be.
Too many vets are trapped in a military version of the old Bruce Springsteen song “Glory Days.” Like the song’s pitcher and pretty girl, too many veterans are stuck reminiscing over beers, talking about the old times, and exchanging boring stories.
The point isn’t that those memories aren’t important, aren’t precious, but that life going forward is far more important than life looking back.
Too many veterans, in person and in social media, state that the best years of their lives were the ones they spent in the service. While a touching sentiment, veterans who say this are selling themselves short.
Too many vets embrace what might be called the “Professional Veteran” identity. Having beers with old buddies doesn’t make one a professional veteran. Going to the VFW or a Veterans Day parade doesn’t make one a professional veteran. Living the rest of one’s life looking back at the portion spent in the service does.
Those days spent in the service aren’t, or at shouldn’t be, the high point of your life. The rest of your life is. Current life expectancy in the United States is 78.8 years. Spending 50 of them looking backward is wasting those years. Even if those years in the service do end up being the best years of your life, lingering on them excessively is just taking the luster off one’s golden years.
I recently spent a very long couple of hours near an older man on an airplane. Not World War II, Korean War, or Vietnam War old, just an older man, yet he wore a Marine Corps satin jacket, USMC baseball cap, and a cane carved with Marine Corps symbols from handle to tip. All due to four years in the Corps in the early 1980s.
Luckily for me, there was a young devil dog straight out of boot camp next to him to absorb his stories about the old days. This man had 30 years of life since the Marine Corps to talk about. He could’ve bent that young Marine’s ear about how the Marine Corps taught him to make the most of the rest of his life, likely with a second career, a wife, kids, and probably grandkids. Yet he couldn’t get past tales of the “Old Corps.”
Don’t be an Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, living in a van and bragging about the glory days of yesteryear. Even if the military was the formative experience of your life, it was only forming you and preparing you for bigger things.
What those things are doesn’t really matter. For some, it may mean climbing the corporate ladder. For others, it may mean building a family. For others, it may mean public service or growing in faith or charitable works. Whatever it is, the military prepared you for it, be it by giving you the leadership skills you needed or by giving you the self-discipline that raising children and so many other things in life require.
Glory Years Song
The military wasn’t the culminating point of your life. If it was, then you need to take a long, hard look at what you’re doing. If those four years, or 20 years, were the best of your life, then fix the rest of your life. You have far more to give to the world than your time in uniform.
Glory Years 1987
Raise your kids. Do your new job well. Go help the homeless. Do whatever. Save your reminiscing about your time in uniform for when you see your old crew.
Ronald Reagan famously said, “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem.” That’s definitely true, not just for Marines, but for all veterans who served honorably.
Glory Years Meaning
You made a difference in uniform. Just don’t let that be the only difference you make.
Glory Years
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