Give Thanks to our Veterans in the U. S.

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Today, Nov. 11, is Veterans day and we all should give thanks to the men and women who have served our country to preserve our freedom. I am a Veteran from the Viet Nam War era but I was one of the lucky ones who did not go over to Viet Nam and, thus, I did not see action. No time is a good time to serve during a war but during Viet Nam it was bad because the men and women in uniform were not treated well by many of public, especially in their age bracket. I was drafted out of graduate school and returned to school when I got out and on college campuses being a veteran then was not good. And while I was in the service there were many instances of being treated poorly. One of the few good experiences was when flying since the stewardesses, it was still PC to call them stewardesses then, always were very nice and good to us who were in Uniform. My father and my uncle also served in the military in World War II. My father was in the Navy but was fortunate in that he never saw any action. My uncle was an officer in the Air Force and was among the first who went in to liberate the Philippines. He experienced and saw many awful things and never really talked about it much. I am sure that he suffered from PTSB which was not something that was recognized back then. His life was radically changed. In the area where he had his training he had met and become engaged to a girl. After his experiences overseas he broke it off and never went back to see her but they did stay in touch to some extent. When his mother, my grandmother, died almost two decades later, this woman somehow heard about it and called him within a couple of days to offer sympathy. That showed how much she had cared about him. Many families have such stories from the past and present. So give thanks and honor our Veterans.