I was looking through all the old photos that I have of Dad tonight, I decided on this one to post for Veterans day. It’s a picture of Dad with my two brothers many years ago. It’s also one that Mom likes quite a bit so it’s a win win. 
Dad was in the Korean War and even though as we got older and understood what actually happened in a war, he never talked about it much to us kids.
What I do remember him saying is that they were always so cold and hungry. One time someone got a ham sent to them that was from a packing plant in Iowa and I can still hear how it tasted so good! Now I don’t know if it was because they were so hungry or if it was because it was from Iowa, but it was one of the stories that Dad would tell us and it still makes me smile when I think about it.
For a Christmas present one year we surprised Dad and gave him the gift of one of his army buddies from New York was coming for a visit for a week. It was one of those deals when you think it’s an awesome idea and then you start to worry. And for good reasons! We never told him, but only about a week before the visit was going to happen, his army buddy got sick and didn’t know if he could make the trip or not. WHAT?? Since I was the one who was talking back and forth with his friend at the time, when I heard the news I instantly started to sweat and came the closest to having a panic attack that I probably ever will. Dad was so looking forward to the visit, I thought do we tell him or don’t we tell him? Daryl said that maybe we should ride this out and it’ll be fine. Well I’m telling you that I literally held my breath for the whole week! And I’m not kidding about that either! Mom and Dad were making plans and getting the house ready for the rare occasion of houseguests. When you live on a farm you really never have houseguests and much less for a week. Holy Cow! Yea, who was going to tell Dad that this whole thing that was planned for around 8 months might fall through? Not me. So I would lay in bed awake for most of the night that week just worrying and worrying about it. And I knew that this was something way out of my control and just stop worrying, yea like that didn’t happen.
Well, it must be the clean living that I do (not really, I just said that 🙂 ) but his army buddy was able to make it and I think they all had the best of times. See Mom and Dad went to visit this buddy and his wife when they were on their honeymoon in New York and always had plans to go back out again someday. They would write back and forth keeping each other up to date on each of their families especially around the Holidays. 
This picture is Dad and his friend in 1952 in New York. Mom must have taken the picture – check out the top of Dad’s head. Yup, it’s cut off
Well Dad started to have health problems and one thing led to the next, and the visit to New York the second time just never happened. So it was just perfect that their friend was able to come visit him.
Dad died that same year as the visit on November 9th, 9 years ago and his friend died Fourth of July weekend the next summer. As I think back about this Christmas gift, I think it was probably one of the nicest things that us kids ever did for our Dad.
So here’s to all the Veterans out there, and especially to my Dad and his New York Army Buddy!