Today I had the honor and privilege of escorting four buses full of WWII Veterans to the WWII Memorial with the Warriors Watch Riders. We expressed our thanks and gratefulness for their service. I was a bit taken back when, as we shook their hands, they thanked us for remembering them. I asked myself, "How could anyone forget the great sacrifice these men and women made?"
I met one WWII veteran that I will never forget. His name is Harvey. I saw him walking towards the Memorial with his wife. I walked over to him and thanked him for his service and that opened our conversation. "Where did you serve?" I asked. He said I was with the invasion force on D-Day, Okinawa and Thai Pan. I then asked what it was like. He told me it was terrible. They lost 37,000 men. "The Japanese defended those islands like there was no tomorrow," he said. It was priceless to talk to this man who was actually there. He recalled it all as though it had happened yesterday. He talked with me about how he has witnessed his country, "Going down the drain," as he said. Children not honoring their fathers and mothers. He told me that his generation was the "Greatest Generation." Their faith and courage certainly were.
We honor and praise the politicians of our day. We act as though these are the great people. Well, I have news for you, they're not. It's the men like Harvey that are truly the hero's worthy of honor and respect. They are the ones who sacrificed for our freedom.
Our conversation was coming to an end and I was sad that it was. As I thanked him once again he said to me, "Through all that horror, I can't believe I'm here." I'm certainly glad that he is.
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