My Country Tis of Thee

It is interesting that Veteran's Day falls so closely to an election. At least every 4 years! As I was growing up, I looked forward to this day in November as a day off from school. We always knew it was coming because we'd color pictures of flags and sing the Star Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful. I didn't have any idea how significant this day was until I was about 15.

My grandpa Ray was in the hospital. My freshman english teacher, Mrs. Korus, asked us to write a biography on someone. It was a lesson about interview skills and creatively writing a story from your notes. I picked my grandpa because in all my 15 years, I'd never really known him as a man.

What I learned about him was far beyond anything I could prepare myself for. He was a shorter man, slighly rounded by years of grandma's good cooking. I remember he was easy to smile and if you got him to laugh, his arms would bend up around his belly and he'd almost make a wheezing sound rather than a true laugh.

As I sat in that hospital as a 15-year old biographer, I found the questions I had prepared were trivial compared to his life's story. He told of growing up poor, traveling with his family for work through Oklahoma. As I had just read Grapes of Wrath, I'd gotten a good visual of his childhood.

Despite how poor they were, he still felt a need to serve his country. Honestly, I can't remember what branch of the service he was in, but he told his personal experience on D-Day during WWII. For the first time I saw him not as my grandpa, with laugh lines, but as a man. A soldier.

His story embraced everything that his America. The amber waves of grain in the midwest to the broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fights of war. He embodied everything that this country was founded on.

He died a few days after my interview. He never knew how much that interview meant to me or how it changed my view of him. Changed my view of America's history.

Today is the day I remember those who have fought and are fighting so bravely for this country. I know not everyone agrees with war, but these brave men and women are fighting to defend our freedoms. Freedoms of speech, religion and opinion. Thank you for serving this country. Thank you for standing on that wall so I don't have to.