Veterans Day 2017

Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I on "the eleventh day of the eleventh hour of the eleventh month" of 1918. Today, this holiday honors the men and women who have defended the United States through service in the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard.

In my family I knew only three veterans, all uncles, one serving in World War I and the other in World War II. 

My Great Uncle George, standing on the left with his fire brigade in Jacksonville, Florida, served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army in World War I, the Great War. To him, this day was Armistice Day. I was ten when he died and didn't know him, but much of what he was as a veteran is present in my house. His portrait hangs just off our foyer. The pocket Bible he carried is in a keepsake cabinet nearby along with his military issue binoculars and a silver-plated swagger stick - a gift from his unit - made from machine gun shells casings and the Seal of the U.S. Army. The last item is one he never saw, but it summarized everything he did as a soldier. That item is the flag that covered his coffin. To my knowledge, it's still in the original triangle fold made the day he was buried sixty years ago.

The other veterans, Uncle Hollis - better known as "Red" - and Uncle Charles both served in the Pacific during World War II. In 1943-44, Red was assigned to Barber's Point Naval Air Station in Hawaii while his brother-in-law, Charles, served at Pearl Harbor. The facilities were a mere five miles apart but almost one year passed before they knew they were so close. On hearing the news, they resolved to meet for a photograph at the first opportunity. And here it is, taken at Waikiki with Red (l) and Charles (r) together at last.

Both returned safely to their Potomac Valley hometowns in the Appalachian Mountains near Cumberland, Maryland. Hardly a decade passed before the declining economy in the region forced them to relocate to better job opportunities. Red moved his family to Akron, Ohio and a career with Goodyear Tire and Rubber. Charles took his family to the booming oil industry in Houston, Texas and work in real estate management. Both are gone now, along with their wives, Edith and Dorothy, and contact with the cousins is infrequent these days.

I am not a veteran. I'll never experience how military service shapes a person inside. But I do count many veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf. Afghanistan, Iraq wars and other military operations among my friends.  They taught me more than any book that the cost of freedom is not free.  Each of them paid a very personal price that enables us to enjoy life in this bountiful nation today.  On this, their day of honor, I offer up to all of them my sincerest admiration and thanks for their service.