One thing I have learned along the way is that every veteran has a story to tell. It doesn't matter what branch they served in or what era, whether they saw combat or not - there is always a story.
Over the past few years, during my time in the Army I became involved in the American Legion and then after my first deployment, the VFW. I've heard many stories of some of the older veterans, most are the funny kind of the 'you won't believe what this guy did' type of story. The occasional chance that you hear a war story from one of the more seasoned generations, it's the time to really sit down and listen.
Veterans of our past are a walking part of history, they have seen things and know stories that you will never find in any history book. They have witnessed a true spectrum of emotions that no one else could ever imagine. Many of them have carried that weight of those emotions for years and for many, it has been carried to the grave. Once that happens, that part of history remains forever unknown and becomes forgotten at the moment of that last breathe.
I know I have been guilty of this in the past... my grandfather was a career service member with a total of 21 years between the Navy and Air Force. With the exception of the summarized final retirement papers, I know nothing about his history. My mom was so young when he was in the service, that she doesn't remember much besides a couple short years in Japan, which for the most part is a blur. That is history we can't get back. I can't google it or go to the library and look it up - it's just simply gone.
This has prompted something in me.... something I want to preserve. Over the next few months, I'm going to be working on a project that will hopefully capture some of this history - so when these veteran's families look back, they don't regret what they don't know...
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