It was my honour to be asked as a veteran to stand with the brave men and women from our village that are veterans going back to WW2. I was humbled and felt inadequate. I was an Army nurse in the reserves and I was mobilized to active duty during the war in Afghanistan for a year and sent to Ft. Sill Oklahoma where I worked in the ICU and cared for soldiers and their families, many of whom were just back from the theatre of war. I had joined the Army with the intention of going to Iraq or Afghanistan to take care of soldiers in theatre, but found myself in Oklahoma instead. I felt like I did not do enough, and not what I signed up for, but in retrospect I feel I did that which I had signed up to do, and I took care of soldiers, it does not matter where I was.
My wife and I recently went on a trip to Hawaii for our 25th anniversary in October 2014 and we had the opportunity to visit Pearl Harbor and go to the Arizona Memorial. As I stood today in the village park with those Veterans I was pondering how I felt standing at the Arizona as I looked down into the water at that rusting wreckage of that great ship. I thought of those who lost their lives in service of our country that were on board. As I stood there I could smell the oil that was bubbling out of the wreckage to the surface of the water. The park ranger there said a quart of oil a day leaks from the ship and is considered by Veterans of the war to represent the tears of those who died.
I took this picture from that spot, you can see the oil slick;
Blessings and 73,
Tom K2BEW
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