Veterans Day

Before there was a Veteran's Day, there was Armitice Day. This occasion was the day of the signing of the treaty to end World War 1, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. The day was changed in the US to Veterans Day after World War II and remains as it was created, a time for reflection on the sacrifices of our ancestors

My maternal grandfather emigrated from Germany around 1912, changed his name and joined the American Army to go fight against the Kaiser. He returned from that war to Boise, Idaho where he married a young woman from Soda Springs, Idaho, and become the Postmater of Boise. She was as strong minded and willed as he as she spent some of the younger years working as a cook in lumber camps.

One of their daughters, a young socialite, fell in love with and married a year later (1943) a young Army Air Corp officer stationed at Mountain Home Army Air Force Base. The officer, my father, served from 1940 to 1964, transfering to the new Air Force on its inception after World War II. They had three children, and one son, me, who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War era, 1969-1973.

Let us give thanks to all veterans over our country's history and let us hope and pray we'll need fewer in the future and fewer still who will be injured, disabled or killed.