Saturday, May 14, 2011

Taking Time to Thank a Veteran


Once again today I told my father’s story. A WWII POW story that continues to be written in the lives of his children and grandchildren. The story is a brutal and tender one. Full of the brutality of war and full of the tenderness of a man who rose above the brutality and became a person of grace and hospitality diametrically opposed to what he had suffered.

Each time I do the exhibit I make a point of greeting, introducing, and thanking the veterans who show up. A lot of them show up. They come from all branches of the military and from all kinds of service experiences. Pilots, engineers, medics, sailors all come with unique stories, and many of them are almost entirely untold. Some of them do not want to talk about what they experienced. Many do not think anyone cares. Some have never been asked. One of the hopes I have as I travel and present this exhibit is that folks will begin to pay attention to the stories in their families. Not just war stories but whatever the family story might be. Every family has a story.

One of the most profound lessons of my research and travel to better understand my father’s story is understanding how very much I have been shaped by his story. The Greatest Generation became parents whose WWII experience profoundly shaped families, culture and country. Hearing their stories helps us understand so much about ourselves. The stories of our veterans especially need to be heard, and they need to be thanked for their service and sacrifice. The WWII veterans are dying at a rate of one thousand per day now. We don’t have a lot of time to listen. We don’t have a lot of time to say thanks.

The very first time I presented my exhibit, a ninety-two-year-old veteran named John showed up in full Navy dress-white uniform. It fit him like a glove, and he looked like a million bucks. His entry was a show stopper. All heads turned. My beautiful twenty-eight-year-old daughter met him at the door and escorted him in. I interviewed him briefly, and the whole placed erupted in applause. His story was even more remarkable because he had remained married to the same woman for seventy-two years. (He had just lost his beloved wife four months previously.) He represents the faithfulness that so many of the WII veterans knew and lived. A faithfulness hard to find today.

Today I met a Vietnam veteran. Richard and his wife volunteered to help at the exhibit honoring my father. As soon as Richard came, I shook his hand and asked him what his service was. He said that he was in Vietnam for two years. I looked him in the eyes and said, “Thank you so much for serving. I am grateful.” Then Richard said something shocking. He said, “You know, I have not heard that very often. “ He paused and looked off into the distance and then added, “ In over forty years maybe ten times someone has thanked me.” How very sad this is. Whether we agree with the cause and circumstances of American involvement in any particular war, we can always thank the men and women who serve. Vietnam was a particularly thankless war. The veterans did not come home to ticker-tape parades and fanfare. They came home to protesters and draft dodgers who spit and jeered at them. It was a war that divided Americans, and the division was played out on national TV every night. But, nonetheless, men and women served and sacrificed. They ought to be thanked more than ten times in forty years!

The following is a letter from a friend of my brother’s, Danny DeArmis, after our father had died and after Danny learned about our father’s WWII POW experience.

Dear Ken,

They say that what you don’t know won’t hurt you. Truth is what you don’t know can hurt you. Thank you. Because of you, I shook his hand. I sat as his dinner table. I rode in his car (an adventure all its own!). I only wish I’d known enough to tell him “thanks.”

You introduced me to him. It was really no big deal to me at the time. Another old man, hard to listen to, hard to understand. He seemed to be preoccupied the whole time I was around him. I watched you interact with him and it seemed difficult and awkward. He bounced from subject to subject and person to person. And yet, when I looked deeply I could see more. He loved you. And his appreciation for you, his daughters and his wife, was deep. I watched him one day as you entertained a crowd in his hometown. He was proud, but not in a way that indicated surprise. He expected you to be at least as good as you were. He was sure of your success.

I wonder now about his secrets. I wonder how he suppressed his anxiety and fear. I wonder if the memories had faded, and pain worn off. Its no wonder that he could run a red light without fear. Its no wonder he could work quietly and patiently with his hands at his workbench.

Until recently, I didn’t know what people meant when they called his generation, the greatest generation. How does one come to that conclusion? Now I understand…they were the greatest generation because they were men and women, who choose service over self, sacrifice over gratification, future over present, and principle over peace. It was the greatest generation and Mr. Davis epitomized it.

I never knew about…

him being abandoned by his country…

the sixty miles he walked …

the prison he lived in…

the meals he missed…

the beatings he endured…

the fear he felt…

the loneliness he suffered…

the despair he experienced…

the chains he wore…

the hope he’d lost…

the debt he paid so I can enjoy my pursuit of happiness.

If only I had known all of this, I would have thanked him myself. What I didn’t know did hurt me…and cost me that opportunity.

Danny DeArmis

If you know anyone who has served in the military, take the time to learn his or her story. Encourage the person to pass it on to his or her children and grandchildren. And the next time you see a veteran, take time to ask when and where he or she served. Then take the veterans hand firmly, shake it, look him or her in the eyes, and say thank you. It may be one of a precious few times he or she has heard these words.

1 comment:

  1. May every American attend a Memorial Day observance this year on Monday, May 30th.

    ReplyDelete