Veterans Day Salute
Duty-Honor-Country; these words and the ideals they represent are seldom heard in today’s main stream culture. But these are the ideals instilled in the hearts of our nations fighting men and women, and provide them with the courage, determination and confidence to enter battle and settle for nothing short of victory.
Veterans Day is traditionally a time to pay tribute and show our gratitude to those surviving veterans of this nation's wars. But at such times as these my thoughts, gratitude and respect are directed to my late mother-in-law Ruth.
She had seen in her lifetime her brothers march off to the battlefields of Europe and the islands of the Pacific during the Second World War. Fortunately, she was able to welcome them home. She listened to the stories told by most soldiers fortunate enough to endure the hardships of the battlefield. And she felt the silent pain of her brother Dye, who was captured and suffered in a North Korean prison camp.
She fell in love and married a returning soldier. Ruth and William lived an American life-- raising one boy and two girls in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. They were a “spanglish” speaking family. Their roots went back generations in Spanish New Mexico. Next door the neighbors spoke Italian, on the corner German was spoken and up the street lived a Japanese family. All were Americans.
But once more the nation called and the only son of Ruth and William, although he was only 18 years old, did not shrink from those ideals of Duty-Honor-Country. They did not see Billy return from Vietnam alive. Soon after, William passed away prematurely-- I am sure as a consequence of his service and of Billy's sacrifice.
I knew Ruth for twenty four years, and never in those years did I hear one bitter word-- one complaint-- one utterance against this nation and the principles the men in her family have fought and died defending. If anyone was entitled, it was she. She knew the meaning of those hallowed words-Duty-Honor-Country.
In 1991 the children of Vista Fundamental Elementary School welcomed home the soldiers of the first Gulf War and paid tribute to other veterans. Each class adopted a soldier and presented them with a gift after a brief introduction. Each soldier stood up individually and accepted their gift from children of the class. After twenty or so veterans, it was time for Mrs. Drury's first grade class, which my son Robert was in, to present Ruth with a special gift in memory of her son Billy, the only deceased veteran. It was then that these representatives of World War Two, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War demonstrated to me and to my family the gratitude and respect they have for the family of the fallen soldier. In unison, each and every one of the veterans stood to show their respect. Afterword, during a coffee reception every veteran came to say hello to Ruth. At long last my wife and her mother felt that Billy was welcomed home from a nation that seemingly could have cared less at the time of his death.
I can remember a time when we all could be proud to be Americans. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and many others of various political persuasions loved America for its promise; a promise for us and future generations to live in the freedom that is the dignity of Mankind. Not because of our history, and not in spite of it. But because “we the people,” as individuals, are striving to make a “more perfect union.” We must not allow Duty-Honor-Country only to reside in the hearts of those who wear the uniform, but keep them in our hearts and instill them in the hearts of our children.
It will do us well to remember the words of General Douglas MacArthur when he described those ideals of Duty-Honor-Country. He said:
"They build your basic character; they mold you for your future roles as custodians of the nation’s defense; they make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success, not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur the difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up to the storm but to have compassion on those who fail; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what is next, and the joy and inspiration of life."
On this Veterans Day, I will not only remember and pay gratitude to Billy, William, my dad, and all veterans for their service and sacrifice, I also salute you Ruth, and the courage of all the other Ruths for which I and this nation are indebted.
A version of this essay was first published in 1993 in our local newspaper.