Veteran's Day is one of those national holidays whose meaning often falls through the cracks for me. I'm not part of the World War II generation, where everyone served in one way or another. I'm part of the Vietnam War generation where service largely depended on class. No one I grew up with served in that war. For the most part, they got student deferments and by the time those were up, the war was over.
Listening to the StoryCorps segment this morning on NPR, I felt that I really "got" Veteran's Day for the first time. Veteran's Day and Memorial Day fall six months apart--equidistant in the year, the flip side of each other. On Memorial Day, we remember those we have lost in war; on Veteran's Day, we honor those who survived.
This may sound like a no-brainer, but the difference didn't sink in until I heard Tom Geerdes, a Vietnam War veteran, a medic who returned home from his tour of duty in 1971 recall his healing moment ten years after his return.
The trigger was seeing a Vietnam War movie on television. Geerdes recounted that as the memories of his friends and the devastation came back to him, "Something just broke. I cried, I just sobbed like a baby for a couple hours. . .I really didn't plan on coming back."
The healing continues to the present, as Geerdes' daughter tells him "I'm glad you came back" and he replies quietly, "Me too."
Tomorow, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, let's commemorate the day by sending healing thoughts to all veterans, saying to them, "we're glad you came back."
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