November 11 - A Look Back
This blog was born exactly one year ago on Veterans Day 2010, inspired by a simple visit to my Dad that same morning at the retirement complex where he was living. He had asked me to bring over his Purple Heart medal to wear on his VFW vest for the the local Veterans Day ceremony. There was never a Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, or any other patriotic anything which he did not formally honor. He was 86, a retired pilot with more than 30 years' service in his beloved Air Force. And already here we are looking at Veterans Day 2011. Hard for me to believe, but as we get older we're always saying how fast time goes by. I will be going to visit Daddy again this Veterans Day morning, not to bring him his Purple Heart medal this time, but instead to bring him a fresh new U.S. flag where he now resides, at the National Cemetery of Dallas. He is surrounded by hundreds of brothers and sisters in that beautiful place, just as he wished. The funeral with full military honors is an experience that no one who has ever attended could forget. It was a beautiful and cool sunny day, with hundreds of bright U.S. flags lining the roads of the place, the wind just right to fully show them off to perfection, making it an even more unforgettable experience, felt in the deepest part of the heart. Right there next to how very much we miss him.
National Cemetery Dallas, TX
It is still hard to believe how much things have changed in one year's time, but that is just how life is for us all. One of the good things that has happened in that space of time is that I have been privileged to write about our veterans, and so many of you have shared this blog with your friends, for which I am very grateful and humbled, as was Dad. One thing that hasn't changed is the courage and commitment of our veterans that continues on and on still today. You and I are being guarded and protected right this moment, every minute around the clock, by these very people we don't even know. Just in this moment, I hope you will think about how amazing that is.
Dad wanted me to continue writing this, so I want to try to express to you what I think he would want to say. I do know that he wanted people to know the meaning of Veterans Day. He reminded me often that it was originally named "Armistice Day," marking the end of World War I, and the day when his own father, then an Army medic at the bloody Battle of the Argonne, knew he would at last be returning home to marry my grandmother.
He wanted people to know the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day. They are set apart for different reasons which aren't clear to everyone. Personally I always appreciate how our citizens do consistently honor our veterans, even if they don't always get the days quite right.
But the distinction was important to him, as it should be, so I want to pass this along on his behalf. It troubled him when people thought of Memorial Day in particular as just primarily another party holiday for cookouts and drinking beer. He liked to party and have cookouts just like anyone else; but for him Memorial Day was not a party day. It was a sacred day, set aside to honor our fallen soldiers, and has been expanded to honor all our loved ones who are now gone. In contrast, today, Veterans Day is a day of tribute to all veterans, not only those who died in service. The bond they share is a deep and abiding one.
And it's not as if they liked war. They saw horrors they will never want to bring back to mind, stories they will take to the grave. But they also know there are even worse things than the fight.
There's an old beat-up plaque that Daddy has had hanging on the wall here forever. Its inscription is one you have probably read before:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight - nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety - is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
Thank you and God bless you, veterans. So long as the heart of this nation beats, you will never, never be forgotten.
Dad at the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC in 1997
