Veterans Day, a day to recognize those who serve America.

Maybe we need to include their families more.

They also serve.

There were seven kids in our family; now only my sister, Mary, the youngest girl, and I, the oldest boy, survive.

Mary writes beautiful poetry; I write this humble photo essay blog.

My brothers served in the Army during Vietnam.

I was the oldest; I served in the Marines before Vietnam.

But my family, like all other veterans’ families, served in their own way.

From the time a family member leaves for boot camp through every day of their service, their parents and siblings serve with them.

They worry about their health, their safety—their lives.

My family was neither a family of hugs nor a family of “I love you.” It was simply understood; it was our family’s culture.

My sister, Mary, the poet, remembers my brother Rod leaving for the Army:

One may think the end of that poem was funny fiction. No, my sister vividly recalls my mom making that call. My brother Rod, at Whitehall St., could be forgiven for crumbling to the floor in embarrassment.

My mom and dad hugged me when I left for the Marines, and each time I came home on leave.

Yes, parents hug their sons and daughters when they leave and come home from military service. They also hug the words they send from across the seas.

Some of those parents will never hug those loved ones again.

But they will embrace, as long as they live, the memories of them: their faces, their voices, their love of life.

Other parents embrace those who survived; some with wounds that will never heal. Some with wounds not of flesh and bone but deep and painful nonetheless.

May we be grateful for all those who keep us safe.

May we be grateful to the parents who raised our protectors, the parents who served with them—every day of their service to us.

We see, through the ages, nations at war working energetically to end it. They travel the globe for meeting after meeting to negotiate a ceasefire, a truce.

Then, finally, a peace agreement to end “hostilities” is achieved. Trade between those countries and other nations resumes, and global prosperity rises again.

But only after thousands of our loved ones come home in caskets.

Yes—after the unfathomable grief of their families.

Perhaps the nations of our tiny blue planet can put more energy into meetings and negotiations—before the war?

That would be good.

God bless our veterans and their families.

Be well,

Leebythesea