Ideally I am a pacifist. And I acknowledge that I am able to hold such a view because of people who fought and died for my right to have freedom of thought.
There are not many veterans in my family, as they were mostly too old or too young for World War I (I'm still trying to figure out from a couple of letters we have exactly what happened to my grandfather Alex - he may have been a POW in Russia just before the Revolution), & during World War II if they had not been imprisoned or murdered then they were fleeing and living a refugee life. Albert's eyes were too bad for him to be allowed to serve as a chaplain in Korea, although he did try to enlist. However, his twin, my Uncle Charles, went to Berlin with the US Army in 1945, and remained as a reservist for the rest of his working life.
Charles was a physiotherapist, working with children in a Houston hospital. Every Xmas, he would don a Santa suit and bring gifts to the kids (we have some interesting photos with Albert and with me in that Santa suit!). One year, his army buddies helped him arrive in style via helicopter.
Today remembering all veterans and those who fell. Let us not waste the chance we still have to make tikkun olam in this world. Shavuatov.
