Memorial Day 1940's

As the Memorial day weekend is here I thought I would write a few memories I had when I was a little kid. First Memorial day was always May 30th. That was also my Dad's birthday. There was always a huge parade. Of course we always thought the parade was in Dad's honer. Dad was a veteran of World war one. He was on the ship on the way to France when the Germans surrendered. He always told us kids that the Germans heard he was coming so they quickly surrendered before they had to face him. Such Blarney, and he wasn't even Irish! When he returned to civilian life he Married Mom and kids happened! One about every two years. Jerry and I were No's 8 and 9. The parades were always long and we were proud to watch for our Dad in the ranks of Legionaires in their deep blue uniforms and the Sam Brown belts and barracks caps with the American legion emblem on them. After the parade there was Patriotic music played in the band shell in Roosevelt park. Then some lady would sing the song "My buddy", and one of the veteran dignateries woulg give a speech. After the cerimonies were finished the rifle squad and the honer guard would go to each of the cemetaries in town and lay a wreath and fire a 21 gun salute.in honor of the veterans buried there and then Taps were played. We always liked to go there in hopes of picking up an empty shell or two. The cemetaries were always beautiful with a flag placed on every veterans grave. Only one thing took away from it and that was the fire department put fire department flags on the firemens graves. That used to really hurt my Dad to see that. In my home town at that time few if any firemen had ever served their country in uniform. They envied the men that did.If my Dad knew how the President has declared every fireman and police officer from the cities to the rural villages as heroes deserving all the respect that these real men and women who have fought our wars have earned, he would roll over in his grave! Here in Nebraska the State has a separate Law Enforcement Memorial day for officers who had died on duty. It was earlier this month and that was good. I think the Fire Fighters could have their day too, Just not on the day when we Honor our deceased Veterans. They are not the same!! Now there are only one or two world war one vets still alive. And the World war two vets are dying in numbers. The V.F.W. with the help of doners is sending three flights of WW two vets to see the World War two Memorial in Washington D.C. Iwish I was able to help. I wish all the vets from Nebraska were able to go. Larry the Cable guy donated 80,000 dollars towards these flights.

Back when I was a kid there was an Air Corps training base at Bruning, ten miles north of us. The G.I.'s were in town a lot with their Jeeps and always participated in the parades. They would give us kid's rides in the jeeps and we really thought we were hot stuff.If any of them were at church on Sunday there was a good chance Mom would invite them to dinner. She always felt that maybe someone would do the same for her kids. They had a U.S.O. in our town and there were lots of G.I. around. We talked with them a lot. That was a long time ago but I still remember many things about those times.

Old Irish