ON BORROWED TIME He did not have to say it the way he did - not in those exact words.
It may have been better had he said the words on almost any day other than “Veteran's Day”of 2004 . He was “making a talk”, mind you, and not
a formal speech. It was his intent to urge his listeners that morning to face up to then fact that “Veteran's Day” needed to be viewed with a sense of up-to-date clarity. He pointed out that, since we were, at that moment, a nation “at war” Veteran's affairs and concerns were “now” news - events in progress were determining today's needs.
At the very end of the talk, as do so many speakers today, he quoted something he had heard just that morning on TV : “World War II Veteran's”, he said slowly, “ are dying off at a rate of a thousand per day!”
No one picked up on it. I did feel a bit irked that he had singled out Second World War veteran's, but I was quickly reminded how reasonable it was for him to cite that statistical reduction at this time and on Veteran's Day, as well.
As my age seems to be adding up higher each year, I have in recent years been urged by health and economic reasons, to seek assistance from the V.A. In many ways, I have been impressed and pleased with results. I was called to my nearest VA installation for evaluation and assignment. All went well. One particular gathering for twenty-five veterans was concerning with filling out interview forms which were then discussed with a staff member. The “group” interview routine was deemed essential because, I found out, the V.A. had been required by conditions tied to wild congressional funding, to agree to “process” fifteen hundred “new” veterans within what remained of that particular month.
They accomplished this seemingly impossible task by scheduling group interviews three times per week. I have one special memory of begin
in such a group. I was “a “minority”. By my count, I was one of perhaps six in all of that group who were ”WWII” vets. It is, indeed, evident that we are ,as a group, dying off at at a rate of, at least, a thousand per day. The majority are veterans of more recent wars. Our our public celebrations are ,however, too often centered on wars of a generation or two ago just as,when I was a kid, we revered memories of “The” World War and we held on to that and the “Spanish American War” until we were forced to start calling the big 'un “the” war “ because “II “ was with us in a big way.
We must revise out way of thinking about our nation's wars. We need new, sustained awareness of the sacrifices being encountered daily men and women and that of their families in our current and continuing wars. We must not, at all costs, allow veteran's affairs and concerns to be used a political footballs or a subject to be set aside as something we had rather not discuss openly. The needs of the Veteran's Administration are not static. They, too, change with the times. Far too many politicians are still deciding if the had best profess themselves to favor the Blue or the Grey; the Patriot or the Tory.
A.L.M. April 14, 2005 [c571wds]
