The Veterans and the Bumper Stickers
While following a Michigan license
plate through 776 and Toledo Blade, I happened to notice the black
frame around the license plate. On the bottom in big white letters
it read “Korean War Vet.” I couldn’t help but wonder if any one
cares. Korean war veterans are beginning to die naturally as they
reach old age. World War II vets, many of whom also served in Korea,
are thinning out as they reach the stage of their lives where their
children only vaguely remember the parent’s service.
I wondered if my Dad would have driven
around with a license frame that said WWII Veteran? No, I’m sure
he wouldn’t. In fact, he quietly poked fun at the Cold War
reservists who “flag waved” as he called it, then bellyached when
they get called to active duty. To him, it was something he was
expected to do.
Few people knew my Dad spent just under
four years in the U.S. Army during WWII. He served 21 months in
combat during his 33 months of overseas duty. He was never one to
talk about his experience, except in North Africa, before El Guettar
Pass and his loss of innocence. He laid telephone wires for the
forward artillery observers for his 105mm howitzer outfit. And every
time a tank ripped them up, he laid them again.
His Company Commander later found out
my Dad could type and put him in HQ battalion where his closest
friend died sitting at my Dad’s typewriter. FW 190s dropped
antipersonnel bombs on the HQ tents during an air raid near Nicosia,
Sicily, while my dad was away driving the company jeep on a run to
Division HQ. His friend was simply filling in for him.
Noncombatant. The word doesn’t fit.
When you put on any of the uniforms that require the oath to defend
your country and the Constitution of the United States, you know you
have committed your life to your country. If your country sees fit
for you to serve behind a typewriter or under a leaky fuel cell, in
sub-zero temperature in the middle of the ocean watching ice form on
your glove, it doesn’t matter. We served, and still do. We aren’t
heroes. We are your next-door neighbors kids that used to bust your
mailbox, turn the music up and harass your dog. We marched in
parades and posed for photographs in front of American flags. The
guy with the Korea sticker is one of us.
Will the Iraqi veterans have to drive
around with bumper stickers about being a Iraq Vet fifty years from
now to get anyone to care? Does anyone care now, except to wave a
flag and clap about heroism? As of Friday, The Department of Defense
has identified 2,380 American service members who have died since the
start of the Iraq war. Do you care? Will America care in fifty
years? Let’s hope it doesn’t take another a bumper sticker.
George Mindling
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