Celebrating those who served <3
Happy Veterans Day to those who have served or are serving our country. My dad bled red, white and blue and loved his country. He served in the Air National Guard and then the United States Air Force most of his career life. His poor eyesight kept him on the ground, so he served in administrative positions and retired a full colonel when I was in second grade.
After retiring from his military service, he had taken a job as the director of Civil Defense in Louisville, KY but only stayed there for a year. It was too political. I said he loved his country, not politics. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
He knew he wanted to do something more with his life, so he researched how to do it and started an Air Force ROTC program in a small town in central Kentucky. We moved there when I was in fourth grade and he ran the program until just before I started high school. He sent two cadets to the Air Force Academy and left the sweetest imprint on young men, a few of whom attended his and mom’s funerals and shared the impact he made on them.
He believed in democracy and he honored the office of the President, whether he had voted for the individual or not. The grandson of immigrants, married to the granddaughter of immigrants, he honored both sides of the family tree by adding the names of the patriarchs of each side who made the trip to come here hoping for a better life for their families.
He complied with both my sister and I when we requested he wear his dress military to walk us down the aisle. And he cried every single time he heard the national anthem.
His daughter does the same and when I attend or watch any event where each branch of the military is recognized by their song, I shed some more tears because I know he would as well.
When he was in the early stages of what we would later understand to be Alzheimers, Rachel’s choir performed a patriotic concert at her high school. She invited my parents and they came. I treasure the memory of him standing in that auditorium, wiping the tears as his granddaughter wiped her own from the stage for his branch’s song.
My dad loved this country for what the ideal of it could be. He saw the flaws. He saw the inconsistencies. He was born when the First World War began, grew up in the throes of the Great Depression and was enlisted for the Second World War.
Whatever the powers that be may have plotted and planned, he believed in a country that might just exist to help others who are oppressed. He didn’t have the benefit of all the information we have been given in our day to breed cynicism, disillusionment and a reality check that every single government has a level of corruption that taints the ideals of the people.
I love him for it.
I am grateful that he also knew this wasn’t his home. I am thankful that he hoped for a place where things were done the right way, in fairness, all the time, for eternity. A place where he would be with the people he loved and there would be no more wars, conflict, deceit, abuse, crime, disease, separation or sorrow.
Thankfully, there is such a place and I look forward to seeing him again, fully healed, fully whole, fully restored to what God created him to be. I know we will not be sad in heaven, but I feel certain we will both be shedding sloppy tears of joy.