Veterans Day…2023

I have a special place in my heart for all soldiers starting with my dad who served during World War II.

  I never understood his remoteness and reluctance to talk about those four long years away from home. But then I read all of Lynne Olson’s books about that miserable war, who awakened me to the many horrors he must have seen.

 When peace is declared soldiers come home often minus peace of their own. It’s been exchanged for post traumatic stress, a diagnosis that came much too late for my father who just numbed himself and his memory, with alcohol.

 My friend Nathan who fought in Vietnam, a year ago this month, died of the same disease. Who knew alcoholism and denial were such close brothers, since Nate never talked about what he saw either. 

 I can’t help thinking of the men who fought on both sides during the American Civil War.

 Women, except as nurses, weren’t allowed into the Armed forces until President Harry S. Truman signed the Women’s Armed Integration Act in 1948.

When I paid my respects at the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, the one Lincoln blessed on November 19, 1863, I cried.

Its simplicity, the 6000 graves, 3,500 from the Civil War, calls out one’s humility.

 I’ve been to many graveyards where the brave quietly rest, but that one seems like no other. 

… a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that our nation might live, said Mr. Lincoln in his most famous address. 

 I’ll think of my father and Nathan, but also of every soldier who ever stepped up to insure, that we as a country, still wake up each day wrapped in the blessing of freedom.

God Bless America!

SB