Have you thanked a veteran today?

An old man with a cane and a ball cap;

It says “World War II Veteran” on it.

Stooped, he walks slowly a step at a time.

His hearing’s gone bad and his glasses

Don’t hide eyes still alert and smiling.

It was a long time ago, he thinks.

No cane then—a Garand rifle he held.

He remembers a beach strewn with bodies

And the sound of enemy artillery shells,

And explosions and the sound of machineguns.

It was a long time ago. He’s seen a lot since then.

He arrived on the beach in a Higgins boat,

Then left it on another with other wounded.

It was a minor wound, good for a month away,

Then back to combat with a Purple Heart.

When he was back with his outfit only half remained;

The others were dead or wounded.

He remembered seeing some of the enemy,

Dead, later on. They were young like him,

And he wondered what they thought as they died.

Eventually he went home to places he had left

And people he knew and a job he had wanted

And a lifetime that had been put on hold.

When Korea came he thought about it,

Decided he’d pushed his luck enough.

Years, and fears and tears. That’s how he describes it now.

He was a boy back then, came back a man.

Summer days in a park with a checkerboard,

Most of his buddies now dead and gone. He sighs.

“Don’t call me a hero,” he insists to the kids.

But call him one or not, a hero he was and is.

Those bright eyes still shine and he can laugh and smile.

He paid a price and is still paying it, and will his remaining days.

He refuses the wheelchair, no walker for him, but just that cane.

He’s alive, he remembers, he looks back, and gives thanks.

(This is fairly unstructured free verse, and I could put a hundred different faces on the man it describes. I'm a veteran of a much later war, and we are starting to feel the ravages of advancing age. But I try to at least acknowledge those of that dwindling brotherhood of men who fought for us when I was just a toddler those many years ago. D-Day was June 6, 1944. 69 years ago this day. Most of those who survived that invasion are now in their 90s. God bless them all.)