Veteran's Day

Today is Veteran's Day, the day set aside to remember everyone who served in the US Armed Forces. It was first celebrated on the one year anniversary of the end of World War I, and originally called Armistice Day. It later became Veteran's Day in the US and Remembrance Day in the British Commonwealth. Both my father Nelson and my Uncle Jack (my mother's brother) served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. The photograph above was taken in the Philippines, where my uncle was stationed at the time. He volunteered right after Pearl Harbor, but was rejected due to a hernia, and had an operation so that he would be accepted into the service. His gung-ho attitude gradually disappeared as the war went on. He wound up traveling all through the South Pacific, from New Guinea to the Philippines, and in the process contracted marlaria, which affected his health for the rest of his life. My father, a dentist, was drafted at the age of 35, which was a big surprise (i.e. shock) to him, and was sent to Okinawa to serve in the Army Medical Corps (a MASH unit, as it is known to vintage television viewers). That photograph, by the way, was taken while he was on leave in the Philippines, trying to find out what happened to our cousin, Adam Boysen, who was captured by the Japanese and survived the Bataan Death March, only to be killed when an American submarine, although warned not to, sunk the prison ship that was taking the captured soldiers to Japan. War is a horrible thing, and sadly, it appears it will always be with us.