I was too young to know my Uncle Joe before the second world war but had been told he was a gentle kind man.When he returned home after three years in the Pacific he was moody,constantly getting into fights and a radically different person.He was probably experiencing PTSD. My father in law Bud was wounded, and spent years as an army colonel in the Pacific campaign.My godfather’s brother was killed on the beach in Normandy, and three other relatives were wounded.Two 19 year old men from my neighborhood Lou and Frank were killed in Korea ,and I buried an Army officer who was killed in Vietnam when I was in Westfield.These and so many others have shed blood in the past, and even to this very day some may die or be wounded in far away lands.
Let us honor their sacrifices by pausing to reflect on the never ending debt we owe them for our cherished way of life.