Roscoe Woods

President

rwoods@apwu480.org

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Roscoe Woods
  President

Steve Wood
  Executive V.P.

Gary Thomas
  Vice President

Kevin Osak
  Clerk Craft Director

Joe Wrobel
  Motor Vehicle Craft Director

Ed Gibbs
  Maintenance Craft Director

Joe Gordon
  Secretary-Treasurer

Paul Felton
  Editor

John P. Smeekens
  Veterans Director

Lucy Morton
  OWCP Director

Flo Morris
  Human Relations Director

Tracey Kolossa
  Legislative Director

A Veterans Day Salute

We should all be getting our Communicators around Veterans Day so I thought I would share a few words with you on what this special day means to me.

I will begin with some background. I was in the Army; after basic training I went to San Antonio for school. I spent 16 weeks learning to be an Operating Room Technician followed by 16 weeks in middle-of-nowhere Alabama. Fascinating I know, but in all actuality I spent 3+ years working in Operating Room Supply at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC). All-in-all my service was as uneventful as it gets. I served in the late 1980’s when there was not much going on. We were pretty much at the end of the cold war. While I never was placed in harm’s way, all of the soldiers at WRAMC knew the military men and women who arrived for care were our mission and we did it with pride.

I made some good friends and I still keep in touch with one person from Massachusetts. I regret not keeping in touch with many others. One of the senior soldiers, a First Sergeant Frank Chandler took me under his wing. He made sure that even though I worked at a hospital, I still knew how to do all those things a fighting soldier did. He was a burly tall man who received at least two Purple Hearts for injuries he received fighting in Viet Nam. Like all those Viet Nam Vets before him he had scars on the outside and scars on the inside. I think he drank a bit too much but when we were at the hospital on the kids’ ward he had a sparkle in his eye that made you wonder at the two different people this one person had inside him. It seems quite a few Viet Nam Vets have that persona, the person who came home somehow still attached to the person or people who did not. All I can offer my brothers and sisters who came home from Viet Nam is a handshake, a hug, and a heartfelt welcome home.

Other Vets I worked with served on submarines, worked as ground pounding marines and Army Soldiers, no offense but I was never sure what we called our Air Force comrades...was it Airmen?? Oh well I have a few Navy friends too but I don’t hold their Navy service against them not everyone was cut out for the Army. (Hey Marines...that was a joke...) Other friends served in the Armed Forces Intelligence, some were mechanics, one close friend was in artillery and for the most part all our stories start out the same and end the same. We signed up, we served and then we came home.

Quite a few Vets I know had tours of duty that were not so uneventful. I will not get into some of these stories but I tip my hat and hold a special place in my heart for those young man and woman who signed up for a tour of duty and stood tall when they were placed in harm’s way. So many never came home and we need to remember them all.

I look at it this way, we all live with a debt to be paid. Actually we all live with a debt that can never be repaid. We live in this free nation because so many, far too many men and women have made what truly is the ultimate sacrifice; they gave their lives to ensure I can sit in my living room typing the words that you read here. To me, it is no more complicated than that. We live our daily lives in the freedom provided by those who served and those who still serve today. I can poke at you all about how the truest way we can repay the debt we owe so many is to be an active participant in the freedoms we all enjoy, but I do believe for the most part we all do just that.

I participate by being all I can be in your union, I participate by talking long walks down dusty country roads with someone close to me safe and secure in the knowledge that I can do so without fear of a roadside bomb or some other terrible event happening. I participate by voting, by taking an active role in my democracy and I know I am able to do these things because so many stood tall and so many answered the call.

So on this Veterans Day, at this time of year where we all take a moment to reflect and thank those servicemen and women for that service I offer you all this poem. It was written by a guy named Jared Jenkins. I know nothing about the author except he wrote this poem and it struck a chord with me.

Heroes
by Jared Jenkins