“Thank You for your service.” This is something my son says to every active or retired serviceman he meets. He never served himself, but his son and daughter are both in the Air Force and are serving in Korea and Alaska. He’s rightly proud of them and supports their patriotism with a warm welcome and great dinner get-togethers whenever they come home.

My Perspective

Like a great many of you I’m from the generation called the Baby Boomers. My dad was a Marine for 24 years and my early life was filled with people working in the military. This, of course, has left me with many memories of seeing my dad go overseas and then move all over the country.  

My mother and father met and got married right after World War II. At the time my father was serving in a Marine air fighter squadron in Tsingtao, China supporting the pro-democracy forces against the communists. Now mind you, my dad must have weighed a whole 135 pounds upon entering the Marine Corp and as much as I’d like to say he flew the planes, he didn’t, but he still wowed my mom. He worked on the electronics of the airplanes.

Well no sooner had his unit been recalled from China and he was home again, he got the call to go to Korea. He wasn’t a combat soldier, but he was at the withdrawal from the Inchon Reservoir. He said they called on everybody to assist in the retreat. My mother, God rest her soul, raised my brothers, baby sister and me for years almost single handed. She would talk and scheme about ways to mess with my father when he got home. One time writing letters to him in Korea describing a new young lady rooming with us who thought my dad was really something. My dad kept replying who is this young lady? When he got home our German Shepherd, Patti greeted him warmly.

Ask him today, and he says his biggest regret was being gone so much and missing out on watching us grow up, but as he says when you’re a Marine and the Marine Corp calls, You Go!

In a really humorous and true example of this, at the start of the first Gulf War he got a letter telling him to report for duty. At the time, he was approaching 70 years old. He still went down and reported and was told, “there must be a mistake.” He said, “Hey, I’m here and you better be able to find my old Gerrand!” Everybody there and my whole family got a kick out of it but this still sheds a stark light on the sacrifices made by our veterans.

With the drawback in the size of our military, many troops are having to serve extra time over and above what they signed up for. Sometimes you don’t quite appreciate these hardships, but today’s troops and families are enduring this just like in the past. The battlefields are in other places but serving this country is just the same.

Nowadays

Lately, it seems that news stories are breaking almost daily about how one or more veterans are reacting with calm bravery in dire circumstances, helping people in need, and even taking down bad guys. Hero is almost not a strong enough word to describe the character and determination that most veterans exhibit. If you’ll notice when they’re around and the national anthem plays or a flag is raised, they stand quietly in respect perhaps remembering the ones that didn’t come home. They don’t panic easily and can take charge of a serious situation calmly, helping to organize the help and make people feel safe.

If you take the time to think about it, history could have quite easily come out extremely different in not only this country but the entire world had it not been for the unwavering strength of just a few great leaders in the free world and the bravery and sacrifice of millions of everyday heroes that came from all over the world. Almost all of the freedoms that we take for granted would not exist! 

Today, it seems we’re seeing the same courage from the soldiers and leaders of the free world. There aren’t the same amount of soldiers marching off, but now they all volunteer to serve.The challenges of this generation of soldiers are a little different, but they still bring with them the sacrifices and hardships of those of the past.

So the next time you see someone in uniform or find out that an acquaintance is a veteran, tell them “Thanks for your service” because it’s these representatives of every free civilization that keep this world safer.