I treasure this picture of my parents’ wedding in December 1945. My father was the first in my immediate family to serve in the military, followed by my brother, my nephew, and my nephew’s wife. My husband’s family has served as well, including his brother, his nephew, and his grandniece.
I thank these members of my family, but I also thank all the veterans, past and present.
For Veterans’ Day (U.S.), Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day, whatever it may be called in your part of the world, I want to thank everyone who is serving, or has served, to protect all of us at home. Both my own family and the one I married into are full of veterans. One of my uncles was involved in D-Day. My father was in the Army Air Forces in WWII, my brother in the Navy in Vietnam, and one of his sons was in Iraq last year, and now is in flight surgeon training. My brother-in-law was in the Navy during Vietnam; one of his sons was in the Navy during Desert Storm, and one of my nephew’s daughters is in the Navy. I thank then, all veterans and currently serving military.
I cannot do any better than this post that Another Damned Medievalist posted on Blogenspiel last year, and so I urge you to go read the full poem by John McCrae. I will quote one stanza from it here:
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell 