A Primary Reader For Citizenship.....

NEVER A WAR VETERAN

A great, great, great, greatgrandpa fought with General Lee a few days before Appomattox, but never became a veteran.

My grandmother's father took his first and only sea voyage to France in 1918 to fight Germans, but was never a veteran.

Great Uncle Herman, a sergeant in World War Two, was in the Battle of The Bulge, but no one called him a veteran.

Aunt Evelyn, a Navy nurse, was aboard a hospital ship off Viet Nam's coast, joined those without the title of, "Veteran."

After Dad's Reserve Unit went to the Iraqi conflict, he did return after weeks of desert fighting, but not as a veteran.

These loved ones came to mind today, watching C-Span, the only television service to carry the Arlington Cemetery ceremony on Veterans Day, November 11. I saw old vets and younger
vets, was thrilled with veteran-carried US flags fluttering by,and reassured hearing a patriotic speech by our President and Commander-In-Chief during a heartfelt salute to veterans.

It would have been wonderful to watch it with a real live veteran in my family, but not one was there with me. Each had lost life during combat in their country's wars. None became a war
veteran, because to be such a veteran, one must have served honorably in the military - and returned home - alive.
Each one a genuine Hero, but never a veteran.


©Copyright November 2004 by F. William Broome