2000-11-11 - 14:58 MST

November 11, 2000

Amnesty

I was told as a child that on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of November 1918 the War was over. Later, long after the Treaty of Versailles, we found out that it had laid the path to World War Two.

As kids we played war, wearing the scavenged insignia from our returned WW 1 veteran relatives and waded hip deep in imaginative blood our spirits heightened by the imagined Glory which crowned real people who had gone into battle. Yeah right, Glory ? Hah !

Even yet today I feel that a good part of our nation does not appreciate or value the role of our armed forces There also seems to be the attitude that a Vet is not a Vet unless he was gravely wounded in battle. As much suffering and misery was endured by the non-combatants and the people behind the lines as the fighters. Also possibly as many were killed and gravely wounded and many suffered through the rest of their lives -- harmed by doing a safe job somewhere not on the front.

A vet is a vet wherever he is and wherever he served in whatever capacity to my way of thinking.

During the Viet Nam activity (?) I was on aircraft carriers on Yankee Station for a while as a tech rep and saw the almost 24 hour days put in by the non-combatant personnel to enable the aviators to go do battle. While a tech rep I visited an ailing Chief Petty Officer in the big hospital in Yokohama and while there saw many men in serious condition where efforts were being made to stabilize them to be carefully transported to the States. Some had innocently been doing their duty in support work, mechanics maybe, medics -- whatever -- they were just as hurt as fighters. In Saigon I saw our men who had come back to ambulatory capacity out exercising to regain their full strength.

Ah, but the fighters who were not physically wounded and the non-combatants who escaped unscathed or so it was thought at the time, had been horribly scarred mentally and are still suffering. Back in the States delivering flowers part time I was in and out of the two military hospitals here in Denver and saw many people existing there who will not be able to join us as able bodied citizens again. Also the many people who were care givers there still serving, still doing without things we feel are normal perks.

Veterans all. The mothers who worried over sons and daughters and sacrificed them with tears and proceeded into an empty life, are they not veterans too ? What about the wives and children of the deceased military who have and are facing privations because the support of their family is gone. Veterans ? Yes, to my mind. The survivors of the Holocaust death camps of course what else could they be ?

This in tribute today to all veterans gone and those still alive and serving or retired. Also to a few I know such as Wil, John Bailey the Writing man et al.

Can there be an end to war and Amnesty for all ?

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