BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS

I sit here wondering what I could write in remembrance of Veterans. So many thoughts are running through my head. Do I write about my own father that suffered so and still suffers from injuries he had to accept during WWII? Or do I write about all the Veterans who suffered and still are suffering from injuries they didn’t ask for? Maybe what Daddy went through and still goes through is what they all suffer. Just a different time, place and injury.

I remember as a little girl hearing my dad wake in the night screeming and my mother trying to console him. I remember the trips to the Veterans Hospital to visit him when the dreams became too real. I remember…

I remember seeing old faces mixed with young ones sitting in the waiting room of the over crowded Veterans Hospital. I remember seeing men and women in wheelchairs, on crutches and just simply standing in the corners of the wards. I remember hearing the cries and moans of the sick and tortured while they lay in their hospital beds. I remember…

I remember standing in the rain, protected by an umbrella, watching old veterans stand at attention at the graveside of one of their own. I remember hearing the guns fire in a final salute and the lonesome far away sound of the bugle singing its farewell song somewhere in the distance. I remember…

I remember a wall, dark and never ending. Its message was countless names etched into its stone. I remember searching for the familiar names of boys I knew from my hometown. I remember seeing a soldier salute when he found his buddies name. I remember…

I remember my daddy playing ball with us on a Sunday afternoon. His laugh echoing across the mountains and valleys of home. I remember the Christmas’s he played Santa Clause and we didn’t know it was he. I remember the walks in the fall and daddy showing us the wonders of a free nation.

I remember handing out cups of coffee, tea or juice to smiling faces in the over crowded halls of the Veteran Hospitals. I remember stopping to talk to a patient who had no one to visit him. I remember hearing political arguments between groups of people in the rec room and knowing they were free to speak.

I remember how the old veterans cherished the old uniforms they wore at that funeral. How gentle they were when they folded the Stars and Stripes of the country they served. How they shook each other’s hands when they parted.

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