Veterans Day

One of the things that I love about having a husband in the military is that we often run into older service members. They recognize Tim’s high-and-tight and begin to share their stories and advice with us. We love listening, and are somewhat awed by their lives. Most of them were only eighteen years old at the beginning of WWII.

One character who sticks out in my mind is “Dja-Dja’s Husband.” Dja Dja is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who grew up in Poland. She is a character herself, but one day I started talking with her American husband, a WWII veteran. 

“People say that we shouldn’t have a draft and that eighteen is too young to be fighting. Well, I’ll tell you what’s bad, is when we have twenty-some-year-olds who are married. Then when they get in the foxhole they start thinking about their wife. You can’t have a wife and fight. You can’t have a wife.”

Mr. G, a church friend of ours, must have been of a different opinion. 

“When I married my wife, she had to bring her report cards home to me to be signed. Our parents thought we were too young to be married! When the draft came, I didn’t have a choice. I became an MP and was stationed in Albuquerque. That was the home of the Atomic Commission, and we had over 500 MPs stationed there. My pay was $78 a month, and that didn’t even pay for our apartment. I worked at the commissary bagging groceries for people, and my wife had to get a job for us to be able to live together.”

Tim and I often wonder what it must have been like growing up in the WWII era. 

“Do you know what today is?” Mrs. W. asked the ladies in our sewing group. I had no idea. “Is it Victory in Japan Day?” a lady asked. She was right. I went home and looked later – it wasn’t even on the calendar.

Some Americans complain about the military. What’s strange is that military members today have a choice. They are not forced to join the military – they choose it. They choose to defend complaining Americans. Many veterans did not choose their service. They did what they had to. And they still love their country. 

Mrs. W. had a unique memory of V-J Day. 

“Sixty-six years ago today my sister and I were on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. All of a sudden bells started ringing and they started bringing the wounded soldiers out of the hospital and putting them out front. The service members were standing in a line, and then one of them grabbed a girl, kissed her, and passed her down to the next guy. One of them started to chase my sister, but she ran - in high heels, too! He never did catch her.”

Patriotism isn’t just loyalty to your country. It’s also thankfulness for what you have. Do you know a veteran? Why don’t you ask him to tell you about his time in the service? Why don’t you ask his wife what it was like for her? That is the best cure for ungratefulness that I can think of.