Veterans Day Parade A Time For Reflection

I took time away from work today in my downtown Columbus office, and walked a few blocks with a colleague to witness the 2007 Veterans Day Parade. One-hundred-eighty-two units (floats, bands, trucks, jeeps, you name it) participated. The flyover by the giant KC-135 re-fueling tanker -- traveling south directly over High Street -- was moving. When the guys driving the WW2 tank moved the turret and cannon barrel toward our anti-gun mayor on the reviewing stand . . . oh that's a discussion for another day.

As we walked toward the reviewing stand across from the Ohio Statehouse, Civil War re-enactors fired one of the beautifully restored cannons that grace the lawn of our capital building. Along the sidewalks, small children waved American flags handed out by active duty military personnel. The kids may have been merely witnessing a parade with lots of pomp, and not really understood what it was all about. But the fact that they could come out with their parents, and participate without fear -- fear of snipers, of roadside bombs, of heavily armed patrols at every street corner, is testament to the freedoms we enjoy in this nation. It is testament to the freedoms that are fought for in other lands so that we may live here in safety and peace.

There also was quite a bit of applause, then somber reflection, as it was announced that the 2007 parade was being dedicated to the memory of Paul Tibbets, the long-time Columbus resident most notable for being the pilot of the Enola Gay. A brigadier general when he retired, then-Col. Tibbets dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, which led to that nation's surrender about two weeks later. His actions effectively ended WW2. Tibbets, an American hero, an individual who "was just following orders," effectively saved the lives of countless American G.I.'s and Japanese civilians who would have surely perished if a planned invasion of the Japanese home islands had proceeded. He died November 1 at his Columbus home after a long battle with cancer.

My father is gone now, but thinking back on his service as an Army medic during WW2, those boys truly sacrified their youth. When he was 20, he was ducking bullets while patching together badly wounded and dying soldiers on the beaches and in the jungles of Leyte Gulf and Okinawa. When I was 20, I was studying at college, cutting more classes than I should have and chasing girls. When he was 20, he was trying to avoid having his head blown off or chopped off, for the Imperial Japanese Army had trained its soldiers to identify and kill "aid-men" (in the European theater, however, there generally was respect by the enemy for Army medics and Navy corpsmen). When I was 20, I was running around without a care in my GMC Jimmy, and trying to work enough hours to keep gas in its 32-gallon tank -- at $1.25 a gallon -- and keep beer in the apartment refrigerator. When he was 20, he just wanted to live to see another day and ultimately make it back to Morgan County, Ohio safely. He rarely, if ever, talked about his experiences. It was like a chapter of his life he boxed up and put away.

My thanks go out to the men and women of the American military, to those who wear the uniform, and to those who have ever worn the uniform, and have gone on before us. Thank you to my colleagues at my commercial real estate office who have served in all branches of the service. Thank you to my three nephews who serve in the military -- two of them in Special Forces and currently in harm's way in dangerous parts of the world as I write these words.

To all, I appreciate your sacrifice. Especially you, Dad. Happy Veterans Day.