Streams of Mercy

We all need a reminder of how Veterans Day came to be! In Belgium and France, November 11 is “Remembrance Day”, a national holiday marking the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at 11:00 am—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month." In the United States, we celebrated Armistice Day on that date, celebrating the end of World War I and honoring those soldiers who were involved in that effort. By 1954, Americans had served in World War II and the Korean War, causing veterans service organizations to urge Congress to change Armistice Day to Veterans Day. This way, service members from all wars would be honored and not just those who served in World War I. Each year on November 11, we do just that.

We celebrated our veterans at the Jackson Springs Community Club last evening. We had Army, Air Force and Navy veterans among us. Many of us remembered our parents and shared their service to our country as well. Each year I remember and give thanks for my father’s service with the United States Marines in the islands of the South Pacific. When I was a little girl, I thought he was one of the Marines lifting the flag on Iwo Jima! He wasn’t one of those men, but he was one of the brave Marines who fought on Iowa Jima and continued doing so across the Pacific.

I was moved this year by a story in The Pilot, of a little boy and his father, a Green Beret, now on his tenth deployment. The boy told his story and his father did the illustrations. The book is said to be “a representation of our forgotten heroes, the tiny ones who hide behind the more visible sacrifices of their parents.” The book, Brave for My Family was published in early November, and proceeds from book sales will support other military families and Wounded Warriors. The book opens with a G.K. Chesterton quote, “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

This poem touched my heart:

The Last Soldier

When the last soldier passes on,

When armies are disbanded and militias discharged,

When weapons are abandoned and armor discarded,

Your mission will, at last, be over,

For you know the soldier’s secret.

Yours was not a mission of war,

Nor a mission of ruin;

Yours was not a mission of destruction,

Nor a mission of death.

Your mission was safety, security, protection.

Your mission was honor, loyalty, service.

Your mission was to end violence, tyranny, despair.

When the last soldier passes on, when the uniforms are retired and the final grave filled,

We will remember all who served and sacrificed for our nation.

We closed our brief Veterans’ Day observance at the Jackson Springs Community Club with the reading of the poem, “In Flanders Field” and the song “Let There Be Peace on Earth…..and let it begin with me.” May it be so, as those streams of mercy carry us on!

Elizabeth