"Veteran's Day"

        “Is that Daddy?” queried four-year-old Lizzy as she pointed her finger at a man dressed in green fatigues.
         The young mother squeezed her daughter’s hand tighter as she answered, “No. I’ll tell you what you need to do. Look at the caps the men are wearing. Your daddy’s cap is dirty.”

         Ten-year-old Paula nodded in affirmation. “Dad needs a new hat.”

        Restlessly, the two children watched as airmen purposefully strode across the tarmac. Suddenly, Lizzy tugged free of her mother’s grasp and dashed toward a man wearing a dirty hat. She wrapped her arms tightly around his legs in the tightest bear hug her little arms could muster. The young man attempted to disengage himself from the small child, his face growing red as he scanned the area.
         “Elizabeth Anne,” the girl’s mother dashed forward. “This man isn’t your daddy!”
         “But his cap is really dirty!” Lizzy exclaimed earnestly.

        The airman pulled his cap into his hands, embarrassed by the child’s observation and confusion.

         “My husband’s been on a long TDY,” the mother explained.
     “I understand completely,” the man said as he sidestepped the little family and continued on his way.

        Hand on hip and head shaking in disapproval of her little sister’s faux pas, Paula pointed to another cluster of men approaching the fence line. “There he is!”
       And there he was! Dad with a brand new cap cocked on his head. He jogged away from the other men and scooped his girls into his arms.

Karl F. Abrams--circa 1948

         For years, my family teased me about the time I flung my arms around the man with the dirtiest cap, converting the story into a running joke that I threw myself at men. As an adult, though, I realize how much that childish mistake must have stung both of my parents. My mother did her best to talk about Dad when he left on long trips, but keeping his image strong in the mind of a four-year-old proved an almost impossible task. Tight on money, my parents didn’t have many photographs of each other around the house. After my mistake, my father gave me dashing picture of himself from when he first joined the Air Force to keep in my room.

         For Veterans Day, we pause to honor the men and women who serve in our military, but we should also reflect upon the sacrifice the families make. When a young man or woman decides to serve our country, his or her entire family becomes a military member. The soldier misses birthdays, Christmases, and anniversaries. The soldier misses that first step, the lost front tooth, the touchdown, and the first broken heart. Every moment of every day, the families of these men and women ache for the lost moments. Our tributes to these veterans must recognize the full scope of their sacrifices.

copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Saddest Christmas Tree”

 

            A few summers before my mother became so very ill, I’d started the ambitious project of scanning pictures into our computer to save upon an external hard drive. I began with the pictures my mother had brought up to San Antonio, which included a hodge-podge from her childhood, my father’s childhood, and their married lives. She’d given up on labeling each item, and instead wrote a brief timeline of their life together, centering upon my father’s various assignments within the military. She devoted part of each album to each of her children. Grouped over several pages would be pictures of my sister, my brother, or myself from infancy through our adult years. I didn’t scan every photograph, but I did do the majority of school pictures and major events. I placed, on a special shelf in my closet, some large photographs that would need to be scanned in pieces, reassembled, and repaired in Photoshop. And then I forgot about all of my aspirations when Mom’s needs changed and her care became more demanding.

            The first weekend of November, I spent part of the visit to my brother’s house delving into my parents’ closets. Curiosity enticed me into old boxes and bins, where I discovered my brother’s baby book and infant shoes along with my grandfather’s passport. Stashed safely into a weatherproof bin, I uncovered some old photographs that I’d never seen. I asked my brother if I could take the bin home to scan the contents with the goal of having it back to him by his visit at Christmas.

            Days have a way of slipping by unnoticed, until I realized last weekend that we hadn’t scanned a single photograph. And so my husband and I set about organizing and scanning pictures. David’s a whiz with Photoshop, and he managed to refresh color, repair missing sections of photographs, or reconstruct missing parts on people’s faces. As our project continued, I realized just how wonderful it will be to have this at my fingertips and to make copies for my sister to keep within her own files. We no longer have to worry about something getting lost in a hurricane because copies exist in several places.

            Anyway, in with all of the pictures of places we’ve lived and people we’ve loved, I found a small shot of the saddest Christmas tree. For the 363 TEWS, this little tree symbolized their lives spent away from their families—all of the anniversaries, birthdays, and holidays missed. I found myself, after viewing so many of our family pictures, drawn to this image.

            My heart aches for those men of long ago who longed for their families, homes and traditions. And it breaks to know that our soldiers continue to serve “the longest year” in distant lands. My imagination runs to another daughter skimming through family photographs and pausing when she comes upon another sad Christmas tree in a barracks.  

 

                                                             "Nam Christmas Tree"

 

Copyright 2013 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman