Veterans Day

Several years ago, I found myself thrown into a group of National Guardsmen from the state of Tennessee who were deployed to Iraq. With 10-plus years as a journalist (I now prefer the word “writer” to disassociate myself with mainstream media, for reasons I hope will be obvious), the opportunity to talk to these guys – to hear things that never graced the airwaves – was an opportunity in the making. Conversations and correspondences were flying over the internet lines within weeks, and I knew there was a story to tell.

What I didn’t realize at the time was the extent to which these stories would expand – among not only members of the Guard but other military servicemen, both past and present. I didn’t realize the friendships and heartache and achievements and courage that I was about to live through. Nor did I realize the expansion of my own horizons.

I wasn’t much further along than simply knowing that I knew there was a calling with the military and I was charged with answering. Being far past the age of enlistment, my involvement took the most logical direction. I began devoting my writing career to supporting and promoting the United States Military. It is a far cry from heading up research and writing for a collegiate basketball museum or covering a story on conjoined twins from Egypt. It was perhaps a far cry from anything I’d ever done before.

As is this blog. It takes me well outside of the confines of newspapers and magazines and my book-writing. But it could also prove a perfect companion. There is no other place that leaves me with the contentment I feel when writing about the military and the many soldiers I’ve come to know and love.

That being said, maybe it is by design that the first blog I publish recalls my perceptions of November 11, 2008, Veterans Day.

My decision to commemorate the day in my hometown of Cynthiana, KY came after realizing I’d missed the big parade in Lexington, which had been held on the Sunday prior, unbeknownst to me. I wasn’t thrilled about my oversight, but willing to work with what was in front of me.

Shortly before the program started, the sleet began. Then, the sleet began to pour. The two tents were crowded and I was moving around taking photos. I couldn’t have saved a dry seat for myself any more than I could have stopped the visible shivering my body had resigned itself to in response to standing in a very wet, cold environment.

Which was about the time that the guest speaker – a military veteran and former Kentucky senator – took the podium. I was about to realize that I didn’t know what cold really was.

He talked of the Korean War and the 38^th parallel. The overwhelming circumstances that the military faced that June of 1950. But he never complained. He spoke of the fighting, the enemy, the threat of communism and the complacency – even disdain – from the American public. He recalled the weather as the fighting ensued. Temperatures hovered at a bone-chilling 20 degrees below zero when the men were lucky, yet dipped to 50 degrees below zero with consistency but without warning. Of course that didn’t take wind-chill factors into account. His statements weren’t made to be “woe-is-me” remarks, but made as matters of fact. And regardless of the circumstances that this one percent of our nation, the United States Military, endures, one of the constants seems to be these statements of fact.

They are statements of fact, it would appear, that can only be made by serving a higher calling. Statements that can only be backed by a love of country above love of self. Statements that seem to be sorely far removed from what we, as a country, have become.

In the midst of these thoughts, it may appear that we face insurmountable odds.

But I know that is not the case. I know I am not alone in my love of our great country. I know that I am not alone when I fear for the future and decide to put that fear into action. I have never been in the midst of war. But I can stand boldly – proudly – beside those who have. Even when the sleet pours from the sky.

No. Especially then.