For the veterans of WWII
December 7th. Pearl Harbor Day, has come and gone again, even as everyone is busy with preparations for the holidays. But this one day every year, I stop and I think about them.
I see them, those veterans from World War II, now blighted by age, standing at attention at the memorial ceremonies. They stand with pride, yet humility at the same time, wearing their VFW hats as they remember. They are still able to do it smartly, at least most of them. Time has taken its toll, after all.
The flag waves gently in the breeze, the young soldiers in uniform stand at attention, rifles at the ready, and a bugler plays ‘Taps’, one the most mournful melodies ever written.
My mind cannot conceive what it must have been like to fight in those battles, fly in those airplanes, live inside those tanks for days, weeks, months on end.
What kind of person does it take to do that?
They’ll all tell you if you ask they’re just ordinary Joes who were doing their job. They’ll tell you they would do it all again, despite the hardships, the pain, the horror, the grief at the loss of friends and family.
I don’t believe they’re ordinary for one second. Those men and women were a breed apart, a generation that rewrote history, that will continue to influence the course of events right through the twenty-first century. And they are passing from us, rapidly now. Their numbers continue to shrink each year; their faces look older, more weathered, but still hardy. Still with that willingness, that sense of moral rightness for their cause, that joy at having survived, that grief for the buddies who didn’t make it. There’s still fight left in those vets, you can see it in their eyes, every man and woman that stands there.
But we forget. It was so long ago, after all. Ancient history. But history is really about people, people doing things. And these people did a lot of things, the things that made it into the history books and the things that didn’t. Helping a wounded buddy back. Running full out towards the enemy as shells exploded and bullets whizzed by. Flying home with one engine out, the plane ripped with bullet holes, praying the whole time you’d make it back. Running with a convoy in the North Atlantic, the wind whipping and the icy waves crashing, standing watching for subs. Nursing a wounded soldier back to health.
Take a moment to remember what they did. Take a moment to look at the memorials, to read and think about the names written on that plaque at the library, or city hall, or in the park dedicated to them. They were the people who wrote the history books, not the generals and prime ministers and presidents. Then take another to say a silent thank you.