Pearls: Selfless examples set by veterans
EDITORIAL MUG: Matt Pearl
As we consider those who have served our nation this Veterans Day, there is admittedly little that I can write that most of you probably have not already read.
The last thing I would wish to do is to cheapen the occasion by becoming cliché. We know about the sacrifices our veterans have made, the price they have paid, the debt we owe them. Our vets deserve for these things to be said, for their accolades to be written and their deeds to be honored.
I have seen several of my students over the years enter the various branches of the military. Some have really made a longtime go of it, while others have done a little time and changed their minds and gone another direction with their lives and careers.
IF military service were easy or appealing to everyone, we wouldn’t need to honor them in the way we attempt to do on Veterans Day. It’s not something that most of us are cut out to do.
In generations past, military service was perhaps more of an expectation – even some instances a ‘fast track’ to a successful future. Nearly every U.S. President we have elected has served in the military, despite many of them having come from families of wealth and privilege.
Regardless of how we view service in the 21st century, it would do each of us well to remember that any endeavor an individual undertakes for the purpose of serving his or her fellow citizen has value. We don’t learn to better people by serving only our own self-interests; rather, we grow as members of society when we direct our positive efforts towards the betterment of others.
Mostly when I think of our veterans specifically, however, I consider those lonely nights that our service people spent on foreign shores, fighting on a critical battlefront in the effort to preserve goodness and freedom. I try to imagine Grandpa Pearl in his twenties, new wife at home, trying o get precious sleep while hearing the sounds of war during his WWII tour through France, Belgium, and Germany.
Another friend of mine – a gentleman who is still living and in his mid-nineties – recited an account to me of his maneuvering over a shaky bridge as an ambulance driver and medic during the Second World War. He bargained with God that stormy night that if he returned home to Illinois, he would takeup his service in the gospel ministry. He has been a preacher since the late 1940s, not long after his return stateside.
Nobody wants crisis, but it eventually seems to return. Nobody wishes to go through the fire of war, but conflict is the flame that has tempered many individuals over the course of human history. We do not seek struggle, but we hope and pray that we are ready for it.
The majority of the adversity we find in this life we can meet peacefully, calmly and thoughtfully. But there remains a small sliver of conflict that requires that we stand our ground, that we meet the foe without certainty of victory but possessing certainty of principle. In such moments, we think upon those who have taken up their burden as service people, who have met the dangers of this world with courageous determination.
Grandpa Pearl once told me that for his time in Europe – three years across the pond– that he was scared every day. It was during one of only two or three conversations he and I ever had regarding his service. At the time, I thought it sounded like hell on earth ( and I still believe this), but I also have grown to understand that his admitting his fear to me was abouuth the bravest thing I can imagine.
Thank you, veterans. Thank you for what you have done, how you have held such value for the rest of our lives that you gave each of us a piece of yours. May we all learn from the selfless examples you all have set
.Matt Pearl owns and operates newspapers in King City and Albany.
