ON VETERANS DAY 2024

Veterans Day is for the old folks who remember their youth and those who were young with them.

They remember the young people who didn’t have the chance to get old.

My Dad got a chance to get old.

He out-lived his Dad, just like I’m out-living him.

This Veterans Day, like every one passed, I think of my old man.

He was an ideal citizen-soldier, a man who joined up to do his duty as he saw fit, then went home and carried on the rest of his life.

From his rural upbringing he joined the Marine Corps, shipped out to Korea, then came home.

He married the high school girl he’d written letters to, had two kids before he left the service to go to college, then had two more.

It wasn’t a question of marching to the beat of a different drummer, but my Dad was a father who never said one thing about his years of service.

His discharge Marine Blues are hanging in my closet when his second wife went on with her life after he passed and didn’t know what to do.

I guess that’s how it is with parting.

It’s better to start fresh.

No one wants to be compared to the last guy.

 

One Veteran’s Routine Reminder

When my kids were growing up I’d take them to the Vietnam War memorial in Washington Park here in Portland, Oregon.

I’d park the car up the road and we’d walk back through the woods.

For the kids it was a nice little hike in a great park; for me it was a chance to reflect on what it must have felt like for the guys who got scooped up in the draft and sent halfway around the world to walk around with a gun.

It was a time for me to reflect on what the parents felt like seeing their kids leave.

I remember what my Dad said when I told him I was joining the Army or the Navy after my freshman year in the same college he graduated from.

Why the Army or Navy? They were the two branches of service that still had a two year enlistment.

Why only two years? In case joining was a mistake I had an earlier discharge date than four years in the Marines and Air Force.

 

Me: Dad, I’ve been thinking. I worked all summer in the saw mill and saved my money for college. I’m thinking of taking a trip, blowing it all, then coming back and joining the Army or Navy.

Dad: Son, you’ve been living here rent free to save for your education, but that’s changed. If you’re not going back to school, rent is retroactive.

Me: You never said that.

Dad: It’s in the fine print of the contract you signed.

Me: I didn’t sign a contract.

Dad: You didn’t have to. This is your home and we are your family. How much have you saved?

Me: $600.

Dad: What a coincidence, that’s the same as the rent.

Me: What?

Dad: And don’t join the Navy.

Me: Why not?

Dad: I was a sea-going Marine on a small aircraft carrier after Korea, the Boxer. That’s where I was stationed when you sere born, San Francisco.

Me: Yes, I remember the story of the Letterman Hospital. What about the Navy?

Dad: I saw a lot of sailors getting in trouble on the job, off the job. They couldn’t stay out of trouble.

Me: How do you know?

Dad: I ran the brig. Marines were in charge of the jail and some of them were the meanest people I’d ever seen.

Me: Meaner than North Koreans?

Dad: They learned to be mean after capturing them. The North Koreans were hard soldiers who took punishment like it was nothing. Some of the same Marines who worked them worked the brig.

Me: So, join the Army?

Dad: No, join the Marine Corps, but the Army is fine.

 

After serving two years and leaving with an Honorable Discharge I went back to college.

My Dad gave me $1000 to get started.

 

The Old Guard

Veterans Day is wish for no more wars that make more veterans.

This is the old guard. Stalin on the right was 66 years old.

President Truman in the middle was 60.

Winston Churchill on the left was 71.

They finished WWII with unconditional surrender in Germany and Japan.

 

The New Guard

These are the leaders of France, Germany, and Italy.

The man in the center is the leader of Ukraine.

He’s the man standing between Russia and the others.

No one wants one veteran talking about their service in another war between any of them and Russia.

So they help each other, and veterans far and wide see that conflict with concerns beyond their boarders.

On Veterans Day 2024, has anyone got a solution to war?

More than one baby boomer as asked the question of, “War? What is it goods for?”

I’m sixty-nine, I know the answer on Veterans Day.

So do you.