Veterans: A salute from 1970
We remember our veterans today at a time when many men and women are serving honorably overseas in armed conflicts and when turmoil at home is raising fundamental questions about our country’s core values. It seems appropriate then to step backward to an earlier troubled time, during the Vietnam War era, and remember what the Inter Lake wrote in 1970 about the veterans who not only protected our country overseas, but then returned to be the backbone of our society at home. Let us never forget them.
The Daily Inter Lake
Nov. 11, 1970
They continue to serve.
They put in many hours on church work, service club activities, school boards, city councils, chambers of commerce, fund drives, Boy Scout troops, PeeWee baseball, etc.
They work at hundreds of different kinds of jobs.
They pay taxes. They vote. They do the myriad of things that John Q. Citizen is expected to do in today’s society.
But they are different in one respect. They are veterans.
They are those who have answered the nation’s call to duty.
They span all the nation’s conflicts since the turn of the century. They are a group that is a part of our society, yet because of this answer to a call of duty, they are also apart from it.
There is a special association among veterans. There are those events — pleasant and unpleasant — that men in uniform during conflict experience which can only be fully shared with another veteran.
Nov. 11 is Veterans Day. A day proclaimed in recognition not only of service to the nation in time of war but, we think, of service to God and country after the uniform has been put in mothballs.
There are those in our society that would downgrade and humiliate the veteran or stereotype him into a caricature that is to be despised. There are those who desecrate the flag he fought for and some of his buddies died for. And there are those who would, by violence if necessary, destroy this nation.
The veteran can be reasonably expected to be disturbed by the recent turn of events and it is to his credit that, as a group, veterans have kept their cool and not stooped to demeaning confrontations with rabble rousers.
The veteran continues to serve his neighbors, his community, his state and his nation.
And for Veterans Day we all might pause and reflect not on the battles of past wars, but the day-to-day battle to maintain an orderly and free society that is being attacked by many from within.
You can be sure the veteran is in the forefront of this battle, for he has proven he believes in America by his willingness to put his life on the line.
This is more than can be said for many of America’s detractors.