Veterans Day 2015

As many of you know, I always try to do something a little different on certain special days; Memorial Day, 911, the holidays and Veterans Day.

My usual attempt is something about each of those days or times. This year, until late last evening, I was on the road. I spent 8 days in Oregon and Washington visiting, honoring and photographing about 20 additional memorials for this site. More on that at a later time.

I had been directed to this memorial in Ferndale Washington by a well intentioned vet. He told me it was a brand new memorial to Vietnam vets. I traveled around and around this suburb of Bellingham, but could find nothing, or anyone who knew anything about a new Vietnam memorial. Very strange.

I stumbled upon an American Legion and the good folks there figured it was the new veterans memorial just down the road. Steve and I ventured down, found it and were a little disappointed that it was not a Vietnam memorial. I took a few pics anyway and wondered what I would do with them.

Then, today, November 11th., it hit me, they might make a perfect Veterans Day post.

So, here is a pic from that Ferndale, Washington memorial.

For some of us, this will invoke memories of John-John, for everyone, I hope it will instill the commitment and determination to teach our children and their children to respect the warrior, even if not the particular war.

We have a saying around my house, which I will clean up for you: "If there is a "freaking" silver lining, I will find it!" Well, the silver lining to Vietnam is that we will never treat veterans that way again. This is easy to say, and if we as parents and grandparents do our jobs, live our responsibilities, we will teach this to the younger ones in hopes that they, too, will teach it to their following generations.

I have been amazed at the number of posts Google+ and Facebook and other places today regarding veterans. We have come a long, long way over the years.

Yesterday, on the plane ride home I got talking to my seat mate about my travels and adventures. She was just returning from her fathers reunion of his military buddies, only a few remain and it meant a lot to her and most assuredly to him, I am sure.

As we were descending into Baltimore she tried to hand me a folded up bill. I saw immediately that it was money and tried to refuse. She simply insisted saying that it would "..be an honor to her..." to help the cause. I reluctantly accepted the bill and put in my pocket. Later, long after we had parted, I remembered it and dug it out. I expected that it might be a ten or possible even a twenty, but when I unfolded it, it was a 50 dollar bill. I was, and still am, blown away, by her interest and certainly her generosity. So, thank you, to the nice lady from Massachusetts, you know who you are.