Mike’s mom is now living at an assisted living and retirement center. Out of the 80 or so people who live there, about 9 are men.
This Memorial Day the place did a little display to honor all of the vets living there. Guess what? Every single man in the place is a vet. Plus 2 of the women who were in WWII. That is the era gone by that will never return again. If I ever end up in one of those places I know it’s not going to be that way. There are good odds that not a single man or woman in there will have served our country.
It’s a good thing that we haven’t seen a major war in the last generation that would take so many of our young people off to fight, but there is also a bit of American pride that has been lost. When I am out and about and see people in uniform I stop what I am doing and tell them, “Thanks for serving our country.” I don’t care if it’s on the street, in the airport or in a crowded restaurant – I do it. I now find myself compelled to do the same thing when I see old men out with their “Veterans of xxxx War” caps on. I go up and thank them for their service because I believe they truly made America what it is today and turned the tide of the world back during WWII.
Most of the time it catches them off guard and they look genuinely surprised. But then they give me a GIANT smile and say, “You are welcome” or “I’m just doing my job” And you know what? It bothers me that so many service people look surprised when I do that. I feel like more people should be thanking the ones that provide us with this totally blessed America that we live in. I often find myself thinking of how horrible the returning Vietnam Vets were treated and I hope we as civilians never put our men/women in uniform through anything like that ever again. A lot of service people are going to be coming home soon with the pull out in Iraq and it’s my great wish that we would welcome them home with kindness and respect for the job that they did – no matter what your political viewpoint.
I snapped a few shots yesterday because the sweet display was still up.
