My Daddy, an American Hero

This weekend Darrell and I surprised my father by showing up at his doorstep unannounced.  It's not that we didn't try to contact him, it's just that he didn't answer his phone whenever we tried calling.  I hated to drive 100 miles and find him not home but Dad is 85 years old extremely hard of hearing and seldom strays far from home.so I felt quite sure we would find him sitting in the shed cracking pecans unable to hear the telephone.  When we arrived I found that I was wrong, he was not in the shed cracking pecans, he was at the kitchen table shelling pecans.

He hadn't heard the phone ring when I called because at that time he was in the small village where he was born and raised, Perry Illinois, being honored as an American hero.  He didn't seem to be near as excited as I was about the news.  He quietly told us he was asked to celebrate Veterans Day at Perry Methodist Church for a turkey dinner with all the fixings and as a veteran he would get his meal free.  My father is not one to turn down a free meal. 

He got there just in time to see a large yellow school bus arrive packed full of children.  The children were there to thank him for giving a portion of his life to the country they lived in with all its benefits.  The children had written post cards, letters and signed a poster for him showing their gratitude for him and all American veterans who had bravely served this country to keep it free.

Dad modestly said he didn't know he was an American hero, he thought he was just drafted and did what he had to do.  He didn't tell the children what he did in Korea.  To Dad it seemed small and unimportant in the scheme of it all.  He wasn't in the trenches with a rifle praying that he wouldn't be killed or that he would be forced to kill.  My father was a medic in the Korean War much like what we have all seen on  the television series MASH.  He was not a surgeon just a lowly medic, but as a lowly medic he vaccinated thousands of Korean men, women and children against the deadly epidemic of cholera.  His heroism was to save thousands rather than to kill them.  In my minds eye, that is so much more courageous.

America people are led to believe that the American soldier is feared and hated all over the world.  That is not all of the story.  The American soldier is also a hero all over the world for the good that he has done.  God bless the American soldier, veterans and my father.