Brad Flory column: Veterans' stories still need to be told

Brad Flory | By Brad Flory | The Jackson Citizen Patriot
on November 10, 2010 at 11:43 PM, updated November 11, 2010 at 11:01 AM

Extraordinary sacrifices are common in the backgrounds of many ordinary-looking men and women around Jackson.

They are veterans of all wars, and the oldest belong to the disappearing generation of World War II.

Newspaper reporters chase a lot of information with little lasting importance, so it feels satisfying once in a while to preserve stories in print from Jackson’s World War II generation.

“Young people need to hear this,” I say.

I believe it so unquestionably that last month I proposed “Take a Kid to War Day” for an event in Jackson called “WWII — In Their Own Words.”

“No offense to old people, but this stuff should be heard by the young,” I wrote. “They need to know their way of life did not come free.”

Take a Kid to War Day? It was dumb to be so flippant.

Innocent children really do experience the brutality of war in less fortunate parts of the world, and that is nothing to trivialize.

One child who saw World War II through frightened eyes is now a 73-year-old woman who lives in Hillsdale.

Growing up in Nuremberg, Germany, she feared both Allied bombs and “Hitler’s henchmen.”

Her childhood featured homes that were destroyed, food that was scarce and relatives who were killed.

She asked a question: Why do I hold up a war from 70 years ago as something special for young people?

After all, she said, later generations had wars and sacrifices, too.

“Young ears don’t care to hear from the older generation,” she wrote. “I believe they are tired of hearing about war.”

Thank you, ma’am, for prompting me to think this over.

Here is why I still say it is important for young people to meet the generation that lived through World War II.

First off, a little girl’s fear of “Hitler’s henchmen” is pretty good proof the carefree lives enjoyed by American children could be much different if World War II was lost. So much was not always at stake in other wars.

That’s half the point.

World War II veterans, in my experience, are proud of their generation and their country, but they do not confuse a good cause for a good war. They know better.

A teenager who hears a wrinkled man describe stomach-turning horrors grasps a message I’ve heard from dozens of World War II veterans.

Never go to war without a very good reason, they say, because war is terrible.

Thanks to all veterans on Veterans Day.