Honoring Veterans everyday
Look, I’ve never been in favor of those once a year holidays (with the obligatory in store specials) that ask you to honor a particular group of people. You should honor your Mother, Father, grandparents, teachers, first responders, secretaries and my personal favorite “bosses” everyday.
Maybe a better way to say it, is to honor your society everyday and all the people that make up that society and to keep it moving forward everyday.
Today, is the 11th Day of the 11th month and it is the day set aside to honor our veterans. So today will be the day of special announcements.
The Democrat and Chronical has a front page story about how President Bush awarded a Medal of Honor to an Allegany County Marine.
There was another article about how a local combat photographer was credited or miscredited with a photgraph of a bomb exploding on the USS Enterprise during WWII.
Both moving stories to be sure, heroics, medals and cost. Solemn ceremonies will be held from Arlington National Cemetery to the town parks across the country (including 11am in Webster NY) honoring Veterans.
Here are some other thoughts that may not be foremost in our collective National/Local minds so I’ll add my 2 cents.
It is 11 days into November and 24 troops have fallen in Iraq.
We just presumably reelected Randy Kuhl (pending count of absentee ballots) who was strangely silent about the closing of the psychiatric unit of the Canadaugua VA hosptal. I wrote about the closing here. Our leaders ask veterans to sacrifice, are not willing to experience sacrifice themselves.
There are homeless veterans including those from Iraq.
Our stay the course mentality didn’t end with Tuesday’s election results nor with the resignation of Rumsfield because additional troop rotations for over stretched National Guard Troops were reported on CNN and NPR this morning.
Find a veteran, find a teacher, an Ambulance driver, a policeman, firefighter, your parents - tell them they make a difference and thank them for what they have done, do now and continue to do in the future.
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Great post.
A bittersweet bit of history: By October, 1918 the Germans were on the ropes. There were widespread food shortages and labor disruptions in Germany, and the nation teetered on the brink of civil war.
When the Allied Armistice commission met with their counterparts from the Central Powers, the Germans were willing to end the war well before November 11, but some idiot on the Allied side wanted the nice round number, so the armistice was set to start at 11:00 a.m. on 11-11-1918.
Because of that extra week of war, thousands of men were killed for nothing, including one of the great WWI poets, Wilfred Owen.
[...] I agree with slto7 that we should honor our vets more than once a year. Even when I see a seasoned veteran selling poppies outside the post office, I take a moment to chat with him about where/when he served, and thank him for his service. It’s very rewarding to see his eyes light up and voice get animated when I show an interest. A lot of these guys must feel that, despite the abundance of “support the troops” car magnets and photo-op politicians, they are very much in the shadows. [...]
[...] need to ensure that sunshine week is not treated like a hallmark holiday rather a way of life. I once wrote that every day should be Veterans day, Fathers day, Mothers day. Well you get the idea. Every week [...]