Honor

You know how you can get so busy thinking about other things that you just kind of forget about stuff that is much more important? Well, today I stopped and spent some time thinking about Dad serving in the Korean Conflict. Dad was a Sgt. in Korea and never talked much about it to us kids. We always wanted to hear stories, but the stories that he knew, I think he felt shouldn’t be shared. But there was one person who Dad always talked about who served with him in Korea. This was his friend from New York. They were such good friends that our parents went to visit them on their honeymoon. Now this might not seem like such a big deal now, but think about it 60 years ago.. and that was a big trip! We were trying really hard for years to get these two guys together and finally we were able to do it as a surprise for Dad’s 80th birthday. We were secretly talking back and forth with his friend and his family and then told Dad the surprise. And what a surprise it was! It was going to be so cool! But then about a week before his friend was coming, his daughter emailed me to say that her dad was not well and didn’t think he could travel. Oh No! It was one of those times when you are reading an email and you just start to literally sweat. I can remember it like yesterday. William walked into the room and read the email and said that this was a really bad email. You think!  I didn’t say anything to anyone just hoping that it was going to turn around. Luck was on our side and soon they were heading our way to stay with our folks for a week. Now I heard stories that when Dad and his friend got together they talked non stop about what they did in the service. But I think they were stories that were special to them and not to be shared with everyone else. And knowing my Dad, I’m sure that some of them were pretty wild! I think this was the best gift we ever gave our dad. Every time I think about it, I’m so grateful that it happened.

So like I said, I was thinking about Dad in the service and the reason was because there was an Honor Flight that took off from an airport this morning that was only about an hour away from our farm. And on that flight was our Uncle, Dad’s brother. The flight was heading to Washington DC and I sure wished that Dad could have gone there. He always talked about seeing the monuments and when his health started to fail, well we knew that it was just never going to happen. So as a spur of the moment decision today, my sisters and I headed to the airport to not only welcome our Uncle and the other Veterans home, but to also pay honor to our Dad.

Waiting for the plane to land

There were a lot of these jackets there tonight

It was so cool when the plane landed and all the Veterans started to walk down the aisle of American flags. The whole airport was clapping and shaking their hands and I know that I just can’t explain how overwhelming it must have been for them. It was overwhelming for the crowd, so how couldn’t it not have been for the men and women who were being cheered on by the crowd and also the band playing. There was one women who was sitting along the wall really quiet and she definitely caught my eye. She wasn’t really talking much  to anyone and held up the picture of who I guessed was her husband. When I asked her if I could take her picture, she smiled at me and said sure. I think of all the things that I saw tonight, this one lady with her picture just sticks in my head. When I was going to take the picture, she checked how she was holding the picture of her husband so I could get it nice in the picture. I don’t think I can describe how to honor someone, but this picture of this lady is how I would show it. I sure hope we honored our Dad tonight. Even though he wasn’t on the flight, we  sure thought about him a lot.

Dad