I was shocked that my dad stood up when the Rev. Tom Nyquist requested veterans stand and be recognized at that morning’s service.
I was just a girl but never knew my father had served in the military. I remember looking at him in awe, if not a little puzzlement. Was he sure?
To this day I’ve never seen a picture of him in uniform. My only memory of his talking about War World II was that he was disappointed he couldn’t become a pilot because he was colorblind and that the Air Force punched his ticket to the University of Chicago by way of the GI Bill.
They say the service turns a boy into a man. In my dad’s case, I think the Great Depression and its aftermath pretty much took care of that. But I remember him crediting the military for putting some muscle on his lean frame and that’s when he learned to box. Other than that, the war was one big history lesson. Or at least that’s how he left it with us. As with many families of veterans, we’ll never know how their service impacted them. But we know it’s a life-changing experience.
For most of our lives the United States has been at war in one form or another.
When you look at a timeline of U.S. military operations you see we’ve been everywhere: Cambodia, Congo, Lebanon, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Bolivia, Bosnia, and on and on.
I was eight when the United States entered the Vietnam War in 1964 and never imagined it would affect my generation. It wasn’t until I was out of high school that the war ended.
Vietnam came into our living room via Walter Cronkite’s deep, gravelly voice relaying the daily horrors.
Then Wolf Blitzer’s boots-on-the-ground reporting with CNN on the first Gulf War in 1990 brought that war front and center. The TV footage of flag-draped coffins being wheeled off returning flights was banned in 1991 by President H.W. Bush, which in my mind was an effort to minimize war’s tragic toll. It wasn’t until 2009 the media ban was lifted.
AS MUCH as I respect a veteran’s reticence to talk about his or her military experiences, I also think a lot of value exists in sharing what goes on in their world. Our veterans are an incredible resource to the community, coming home as highly skilled leaders who have learned to put service above self. That’s what can make any generation great.
