It is impossible for many of us from my generation – Baby Boomer – to understand what it was like for the young men and women of this city who signed away their lives to the United States of America during World II and who were sent to the far edges of this earth into war-torn infernos to sacrifice their lives, to be wounded and then to return.
Such is the case in every war commemorated by Veterans Day.
World War 1 saw 100,000 American men and women die in that exclusively European conflict which brought all the horrors of modern warfare to the misery of the trenched fields and open spaces upon which that war was waged.
Our thoughts always go to the veterans of the wars, how they left Everett innocent and ready to go in their lives, and how they returned quiet, almost somber, but thanking the Lord for the blessing of returning to the home of their youth.
How many Everett veterans from both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have come back home after being away in some cases for years, to fall to their
knees when arriving back on American soil and to thank God for the United States of America.
This thought, these incidents, this is the stuff of raw emotion that causes some of us to understand more fully about the sacrifice and the horrors of war experienced by so many of our young people from generation to generation.
Everett has made a real contribution to American Democracy, and to peace in the world.
Everett young men and women in the armed forces of the United States stand strong in a world fraught with problems that cannot be solved.
Man’s inhumanity to man is something all of us can understand.
Many historians and philosophers believe that man’s greatest effort on this earth is to exterminate himself – and something can be said for this belief – just ask some of our veterans who have fought on the battle field.
Fighting on a battle eld is not something one can appreciate reading a book or watching a movie.
It is something one must experience in real time and close-up to understand what is at stake.
To be asked by a commanding officer to participate in a suicidal frontal attack… well…if you want to know what heroism and sacrifice are about, it resides right there in every such action.
Veterans Day 2018 has come and gone but our nation lives on. Democracy lives on and whether you hate or admire President Donald Trump, no one individual or battle is bigger than American Democracy on the changing world scene.
To all those who have served and died, we can only give our eternal thanks and remembrance for what they did.
Our lives go on because of their sacrifice and bravery and because of their suffering and what they gave of themselves.
If you haven’t served, it is difficult to understand.
If you have, or if you have a loved one who died on the battle eld, then you understand. Such sacrifice must always be recalled from year to year by a great nation – and this is why we have Veterans Day.