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old veterans
juju
Member Posts: 6,321 ✭
You see them everyday though you probably don't really notice them. Maybe you pass them driving slowly in the right lane and you cast a glance and perhaps a muttered curse at them as you drive by. Or possibly you are behind them in the checkout lane at the corner store, you glance at your watch wondering why it's taking them so long to pay and get out of your way. Bottom line is, they are a pain and an impediment to your style and your pursuit of life and its freedoms. They sit on porches and in rest homes and the lobbies of VA hospitals, old, forlorn and forgotten by most. Most of us don't give them a second thought; it's as if they don't exist, unless they get in our way.
Maybe we should notice, maybe we should give them a second thought, maybe, just maybe that Old man driving so slow or sitting on the porch is what is left of a veteran of WWII. Maybe that old man with the cane holding you up in line needs that cane because he was wounded fighting for the freedoms you enjoy so much. Maybe that rest home around the corner is full of men who fought on distant shores, who bled and sacrificed their youth so that we could walk as free men today. As time goes by the men and women who fought WWII are beginning to pass on to a better life. There are fewer and fewer of them every day, of those that are left most are forgotten or ignored. As we celebrate the hero's of the war on terror we seem to forget the terror that was inflicted on Europe and would have been inflicted on the rest of the world had it not been for these brave men and women. How many of us have taken the time or made the effort to seek out a veteran of this campaign and thank them? Not many of us, a shame isn't it? Oh we occasionally show up for a Veterans Day parade or watch the news stories on Memorial Day about the war. We see the movies about war, "remember Pearl Harbor" well; we all remember that, right? How many of us when we go into a hardware store where the kindly gray-haired grandpa works or the local Wal-mart and see the old man greeting people at the door think that he might have been a war hero, or of the horrors he may have seen or the hardships he may have had to endure when he was a young man. A man, hardly, a boy is more like it. Probably 18 or 19 at the time and forced to grow up fast, to fast and to hard for sure. I know most of us generally show respect to the elderly we come into contact with in our daily lives and that most of us appreciate the sacrifices that all veterans of all of our wars have made for us, but how many of us relate that appreciation to the balding, stoop shouldered gentleman driving to slow in the right lane, to the possibility that he may be part of the reason this nation remains great today. We tend to remember our veterans as they were, young and strong, not what they are today, older and grayer. Just something for you to think about the next time you have to wait in line while he counts his pennies. Maybe the next time you pass him you might wave and say a silent thanks instead, for you never know, you just never know.
Just my .02
WWII vets - 75+ years old now (average)
Korea vets - 70+
Vietnam vets - 50+
Maybe we should notice, maybe we should give them a second thought, maybe, just maybe that Old man driving so slow or sitting on the porch is what is left of a veteran of WWII. Maybe that old man with the cane holding you up in line needs that cane because he was wounded fighting for the freedoms you enjoy so much. Maybe that rest home around the corner is full of men who fought on distant shores, who bled and sacrificed their youth so that we could walk as free men today. As time goes by the men and women who fought WWII are beginning to pass on to a better life. There are fewer and fewer of them every day, of those that are left most are forgotten or ignored. As we celebrate the hero's of the war on terror we seem to forget the terror that was inflicted on Europe and would have been inflicted on the rest of the world had it not been for these brave men and women. How many of us have taken the time or made the effort to seek out a veteran of this campaign and thank them? Not many of us, a shame isn't it? Oh we occasionally show up for a Veterans Day parade or watch the news stories on Memorial Day about the war. We see the movies about war, "remember Pearl Harbor" well; we all remember that, right? How many of us when we go into a hardware store where the kindly gray-haired grandpa works or the local Wal-mart and see the old man greeting people at the door think that he might have been a war hero, or of the horrors he may have seen or the hardships he may have had to endure when he was a young man. A man, hardly, a boy is more like it. Probably 18 or 19 at the time and forced to grow up fast, to fast and to hard for sure. I know most of us generally show respect to the elderly we come into contact with in our daily lives and that most of us appreciate the sacrifices that all veterans of all of our wars have made for us, but how many of us relate that appreciation to the balding, stoop shouldered gentleman driving to slow in the right lane, to the possibility that he may be part of the reason this nation remains great today. We tend to remember our veterans as they were, young and strong, not what they are today, older and grayer. Just something for you to think about the next time you have to wait in line while he counts his pennies. Maybe the next time you pass him you might wave and say a silent thanks instead, for you never know, you just never know.
Just my .02
WWII vets - 75+ years old now (average)
Korea vets - 70+
Vietnam vets - 50+
Comments
The 3 years he wasn't here, he was fighting his way acorss Europe in WWII as a US soldier. He's earned his spot in our society...and in the hearts of those who know him. I praise the Lord that he's my friend.
Do not mistake my kindness for weakness.
IALEFI, ASLET, NRA, and proud owner of a pair of S&W revolvers.