Ghost of Holidays Past

As an adviser to students at Moorpark High School, our Healthcare Academy accepted the responsibility of distributing some pre-holiday gifts to veterans at Wadsworth Veterans Hospital. While I had visited the facility in the distant past, the 1930s visiting WW I family friends who had been gassed during the war in France, it had been some time since I had been on post since becoming a teacher. I was surprised and gratified at the friendly response of the veterans to the kids as they handed out the blankets and socks provided by the American Legion post in Moorpark shortly before Thanksgiving.

People and things I had seen prompted me to reflect on my own tour of duty during the Korean War, the"Forgotten War," and I was prompted to write a few lines which I submitted with my earlier email.

We are all full of piss and vinegar when we send our kids off to war but we don't do a very good job of bringing them home and helping them recover from their experiences, do we? Think about it for a while.