Went to DC yesterday as a guardian on a flight taking 100 World War Two Veterans to see their memorial. What a day! I cannot do the experience justice in a blog posting..I say “first” because I hope to go on a second..maybe a third one..who knows.

check out these two clips from the local news…

First Video from DC (at the 2:35 mark look for the guy in a yellow rain suit pushing a wheel chair, that is me!)

The Welcome Home (the first minute is a bit of a recap from the first clip but the rest of it shows us getting back to Raleigh and the welcome party. The first guy interviewed, Allen Woods, is one of my veterans!)

When I say he is one of mine I mean I was responsible for him for the day. I had another fellow, John Dew, who was in the wheelchair. I was supposed to have a third but he had to cancel on short notice. When one is over 85 years old health can present challenges! I met them two weeks ago and kept them informed on all the admin before the flight. Then I took care of their every need during the trip.

Like I said, a great day. You know the story of this Greatest Generation. Went away young, fought hard, came home and never talked about it. Yesterday there was some talking.

In the second video a son mentions never talking about the war with his father who did go on the flight. I hope he makes the most of this chance. My dad died a decade a go and we never really talked about his experiences in the war. I know a  few stories and they are funny ones – all G rated. No blood. Even when I was an Officer of Marines, in harms way, he never shared much about his service. Yet, this weekend at a wedding my Mom told me one of the few bloody ones she had heard.

OK, absolutely no business point to this post. The previous paragraph is the point. If you are in a position to hear the stories – DO IT NOW. If you know someone who is in a position to hear the stories from a family member – FORWARD THIS NOW.  Perhaps a way to get it started is to break out a map and have them walk you through their time of service.

One final comment…at the World War Two memorial, where it was raining really hard, I asked both of my vets what they were thinking. They both remarked about the “boys who didn’t come home.” That, my dear readers, is called humility.

God Bless America and God Bless all our veterans.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 5th, 2010 at 8:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.