Today is Veterans Day. People will be posting pictures of family members who served. I will post a picture of Bob who served in the Marine Corps. We should honor those (and their families) who willingly sacrificed and answered their country’s call.
I am also going to post a picture of my father with. He was a young man during WWII. He tried to enlist but was turned down. Not because he was physically unable to serve, but because he was a shipsfitter at the Philadelphia Naval Yard.
Shipfitters are skilled tradespeople responsible for building and maintaining the structural framework of ships, barges, and offshore vessels. Their work directly affects vessel integrity and safety. My father worked on the naval vessels returning from combat in the Atlantic. After Pearl Harbor, Dad and Mom moved to California where he worked in the Mare Island Naval Yard on the naval vessels returning from combat in the Pacific.
He didn’t talk much about what he saw, but I remember one time when he said how difficult it was when the ship’s sealed hatches were opened and the bodies of the sailors who had been killed came “flowing out with the water.”
There were many men and women who served, not in battle, but as support. David set a principle that “We share and share alike—those who go to battle and those who guard the equipment.” [1 Samuel 30:24 NLT]
Today I want to honor all veterans, but I also want to honor those who stood behind them. Thanks Bob & Dad.