This Veteran’s Day post has more or less evolved into a biannual observance here on the Rare Air blog. Mostly because I don’t find this kind of focused material that often. I do not, however, wish to convey that it has any less importance than any other subject matter that I have or will deal with. I am deeply respectful of what this country’s men and women have done while sworn to defend it. They are my heroes. They are my friends. They are my family. That said, I felt it was a great opportunity to acknowledge two of the more important institutions of support that exist inside the life of service men and women; friends and family.
The friendships that have formed as a result of being side by side with your fellow comrades in arms can be lifesaving, and lifelong in endurance. These special ties are understandably different from the casual acquaintances that people form in other ways. I suppose there are books already filled with examinations of the how and why. I wish only to take a nostalgic look at the imagery of those friendships and remember just how important they were to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. While the deployments and cruises, PCSs and tours were ongoing, the friends were there too. With ties that balanced when the trouble gotten into didn’t always equal the trouble gotten out of. Where the sum total of the bond was greater than its parts. Together they held on and held up and made it home. Well, some of them.
Home. Where the heart is. Where the family is. Hopefully at the end of the deployments and cruises and tours, and all the letters and postcards and care boxes, the real thing awaited. That group of people that couldn’t go along and bore the heartache of time and distance, whether they were one or many. Home. Where the prayers came from. Where the pride wiped away the tears and flags flew. And there were stars in their eyes, and sometimes in their windows. The thing with family is that its value isn’t measured in what they are so much as the fact that they just, are. They are there. For the serviceman coming home, that’s all that mattered. For the ones who didn’t come home, the family was still there. Credited with the loss, burdened with the task of carrying on. Many times friends became family thereafter.
Remember them both. Just as you remember the uniforms and the people in them. Maybe some of these vintage images will help draw you back to the past from where you can see that things then, and things now aren’t all that different. We all need friends and family.
I have more family type images coming in the next few days. Please check back again for more.
Final Salute
As we honor all who served this Veteran’s Day, keep their friends and families in your heart as well. They deserve a measure of respect and gratitude due them for their support in immeasurable ways. God bless them all.
All images are part of my personal collection.
Rick L.
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