Veterans Returning Home 2018

  

Newspaper column 2018

Americans love reunions and welcome home ceremonies. Now that most of us have unrestricted access to the internet, including YouTube, we seem to have unending supply of emotional reunions when our military service men and women show up unexpectedly and surprise their children at school or elsewhere. Also popular are the videos of service members who arrive home and surprise their family pets and end up getting knocked to the ground by the exuberance of the dog in showing its happiness.

It should come as no surprise to us why we enjoy these videos so much. It’s in our national DNA. Warapped up in those scenes of warmth and hugs and love are all the values we treasure - home, family, faith, God and country, patriotism, pride in who we are and our love of freedom and democracy.

Never is the patriotism aspect of this national fervency more obvious than when we welcome home those men and women who have served their country in time of war when the circumstances included captivity and ill treatment and often torture.

I vividly remember my first exposure to a story of this nature. Navy Captain Jeremiah Denton was one of the first returning prisoners of war in 1973, and I remember watching him on TV walking in uniform from the airplane and going to a bank of microphones on the tarmac where he said “We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our Commander-in-Chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America.”

Captain Denton was held as a prisoner of war for almost eight years, four of which were spent in solitary confinement. He was notable for his leadership during the Hanoi March in July 1966 when he and 50 other American prisoners were paraded through the streets of Hanoi and beaten by North Vietnamese civilians. He was forced to participate as an American POW by his captors in a televised conference and during that conference he repeatedly blinked his eyes in Morse code, spelling out “T-O-R-T-U-R-E”, a message which for the first time conveyed to Americans that American POWs were being tortured in North Vietnam.

When questioned about his support for the U.S. war effort in Vietnam, he said, “I don't know what is happening, but whatever the position of my government is, I support it fully. I am a member of that government, and it is my job to support it, and I will as long as I live."

I remember watching the courageous rescue of seven of our solders on Sunday, April 13, 2003 from an abandoned Iraqi cabin where they had been taken by the Iraqi captors. It is ingrained in my memory because I saw it on TV right before I went to church to preach, and I wrote a poem about it.

Not only have American service men and women been captured and tortured. In 1979 a group of Iranian students took 52 American citizens as hostages and held them for 444 days until the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan, at which time they were released. Most Americans, and almost everyone in Lebanon wore yellow ribbons, tied them in the trees and hung them from porch balconies during the days of captivity. Yellow ribbons were tied into all the trees lining Commercial Street and Lebanon businesses flew flags every day.

On the following Saturday after the Inauguration, many of us met on the steps of the Post Office for a public ceremony honoring the hostages. State Representative Pete Page and Senator John T. Russell spoke and Dr. Robert Taylor led us in prayer and we all sang God Bless America. Then we all deposited the yellow ribbons we had been displaying during the previous year in a large box in front of the Post Office. Some said it was the bright January sunshine that triggered the tears in our eyes but I know it was more than that.

Now again this week, Americans have experienced this kind of joy and gratitude to God for answered prayers when we watched three innocent Korean-American citizens deplane at Joint Base Andrews in the wee hours of the morning as they were met by our President and Vice-President as well as our First and Second Ladies.

“We would like to express our deep appreciation to the United States government, President Trump, Secretary Pompeo, and the people of the United States for bringing us home,” they said. “We thank God, and all our families and friends who prayed for us and for our return. God Bless America, the greatest nation in the world.”

© Joan Rowden Hart 2018

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