I wrote this for veterans day in 2009 and published it on another website. Today while thinking of all vets and especially family and friends I recalled this piece and dug it up. I feel like re-posting it in memory of my stepfather. As follows:
I have several vets in my family and a huge respect for all who have served. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I would like to make this blog in memory of my step father who not only served with honor but who paid the price for his service for most of the rest of his life.
My mother married the most gentlest of gentlemen when I was about nine years old granting me my step father. He had two daughters and a son whom he had raised on his own after his first wife was murdered shortly after he returned from Germany. He worked as a Construction supervisor for a company that built schools. He had just started building the first school to have a bomb shelter in it when they married. His first wife had left him in great debt and besides raising his children he was also strapped with large payments. But his character was of the utmost finest and he was the most respected man in his company. I wish I could say that was true of his reputation in the community. Apparently some small minded people in the town we lived in still believed he killed his first wife because they arrested him for it. But the real murderer was found and confessed so of course he was released within days after the arrest. But that didn't stop them from staring and wagging their tongues in public. How stupid they were to condemn such a wonderful and gentle man.
My mom went to work to help him pay off his debts and we had a small but comfortable home where the two families came together. The pressures of the creditors mixed with the pressures of his job to reach impossible deadlines due to delays in material deliveries were weighing on him heavily. He became very upset about how those who liked to point and stare affected my mom's reputation. And he also did not like that my mom went to work to help pay bills but she absolutely insisted. During this time, I never heard the man utter a cross word or raise his voice. He maintained his kindness in spite of it all and to all whom he met. He was a clean living Christian man and he upheld the ideals of his faith at all times.
One day he came home after a particularly stressful day at work and was very quiet for the entire evening. He went to bed right after dinner. The next morning I woke up to hear all sorts of commotion going on in the house. I heard my step dad crying and shouting. I thought right away that maybe my mother had died! I rushed out to see paramedics with a stretcher walking through the living room. I was so relieved to also see my mother standing there crying. What could have happened? I wondered. The paramedics were knocking on the bedroom door where my step father's sobs could be heard. He was yelling something about Germans and to hide!
Finally, they busted down the door and my mother held us children back from entering the living room. There was a scuffle in the bed room and eventually my step dad emerged in a straight jacket and tied to the stretcher. He was taken to a veterans hospital that day where he was later diagnosed as having a complete nervous break down. Today that would be called post traumatic stress syndrome or PTSD. For a long time he actually believed he was still in the war and would hide from the Germans. It was a long time before anyone other than my mother could visit him. But once we started we spent many days over many years visiting him in the hospital. He was there for several months on this occasion but often had to return when he would again become totally depressed and stressed out and think he was in Germany again.
During his first breakdown, his story came out finally about what happened to him in the war. His whole company that he led had been slaughtered except for him during a battle. There were several men he had known even from child hood in his company. When it was over, he had crawled over the dead bodies to a place of safety. While he was decorated for his actions and there was nothing he could have done to save his men, this nightmare haunted him continually. He felt guilt that he alone had survived. Apparently he had suppressed it and tried to contain the agony of the memories but when the stress of his life was too much to bear, it all came out that fateful night.
During our many visits we took presents for the men not only in the mental ward but also in other wards. It was there that I saw all manners of wounded veterans and it was so sad because many had no one to visit them. My step dad was put on many types of prescription medicines for his conditions. Several had heart risk side effects and combined that made it even worse on him. He eventually had three heart attacks and the third one killed him. Although the doctors noted the drugs were a factor the government did not recognize his death as combat related and my mother never got any money in benefits. This did not and still does not seem fair to me at all. My mother was left to raise both families. And so it is also the families of vets that I honor and remember on this day as well. They have also no doubt made many sacrifices.
When I think of Vets, I remember those who came back whole but even more so those who did not. I wish our country would get behind vets more than it does now. The wounds run deep in so many of our men and women whether physical or mental. The sacrifices they made for all of us are so incredible that I can not even comprehend them. So in honor of my step dad and all who have served, I send a prayer of thanks and hope for healing whether mental or physical.
During my previous trip to DC I visited all of the war memorials and the last place I visited before leaving was Arlington. It is so sobering to see the miles of tombstones. But our brave vets lay all over this country not just in Virginia. And I can do nothing for those who have passed except remember them and give thanks. But our living vets could use a hand now and I will continue doing what I do to support them. I hope you will do the same. And if you've never visited a Veteran's hospital before I suggest you do it at least once. And please, take small gifts with you even if it is only snacks or magazines. You will find many for whom your visit may be the only one they have ever received.
