Veteran's Day

Today was Veteran’s Day and Meg and I had a lot of fun remembering all of the programs that we had attended on this day.  We agreed that most were really pretty good at Syracuse Elementary, minus the one where a veteran passed out in the middle of the ceremony.  Meg laughed when she recalled that the students were asked to just keep singing while the ambulance wheeled in a stretcher.  One of her classmates later told them that it was her grandfather (not quite accurate) and the entire second grade was distraught for the rest of the day.

The programs at Milford School weren’t quite as good as those in the rest of the school system.  One year the band teacher let a student play the National Anthem on the electric guitar.  It definitely wasn’t appreciated as much by the Milford crowd as it was by the Jimmy Hendrix fans decades earlier.  There was always one bright spot in the Milford program that Syracuse could never match.  That was the white table ceremony put on by Mrs. Fiscus.  It added so much meaning knowing her family’s sacrifice, especially when the Fiscus’ girls participated.  Meg and I both felt honored when Paula invited Meg to be a part of the ceremony as well.  I was very glad to hear that Paula was going to continue the tradition at the high school this year.

No matter how good or bad the ceremony was, I was always impressed that the Wawasee school system honored the Veteran’s every year.  It made me even more proud of my Grandfather’s service during World War II.  Paw Paw served his country well in the Army Corp of Engineers.  He shared so many stories with us over the years.   From his disbelieve at being drafted due to his “busted” toe and poor vision to the shot of whiskey he earned on a New Year’s Eve far from home.  It didn’t matter how many times I heard him talk, I never grew tired of hearing those stories.  During the last week of his life, he actually shared a story with Brett and Cal that I had never heard.  It was about a minor league baseball player that joined his outfit and led them to victory in a baseball game against an opposing corp of engineers.  Although CrapPa is never far from my thoughts, today he is especially on my mind as I salute him and all that have served our country.