Kubik-Finch American Legion Post 142 in Traer is like many other Legion, Amvets, VFW or related Auxiliary posts across the country. Except it’s not.

But the same could be said about the Legion posts in Clutier, Gladbrook and every other town and city across the country. They are all part of a large organization, but each is unique. Each has its own mix of men who left their homes to serve their country, and each post has its own collection of stories. The farmers’ sons and merchants’ daughters went around the world to serve their nation, and then came home to the people and ideals they helped defend.

Each has a unique story worth listening to, and the same goes for those who were on the home front hoping for victory and praying for safe returns.

Veterans across Iowa and the nation keep their spirit of camaraderie and patriotism alive with meetings, school visits, and carrying the symbol of their country at the beginnings of parades and sporting events. They make time to educate the younger generations, who until now have not really dealt with war on such a close-to-home level, about sacrifice and duty.

On Dec. 7, 1991, I vaguely remember hearing on the radio a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I never thought much about it until four years later, when church bells across the country were to ring 50 times on Nov. 11, 1995, to commemorate the end of the war. All I had done in those four years was grow up. Fifty years ago, that time was spent collecting scrap, holding air-raid drills, rationing food and uniting to win World War II.

It’s because of what this country did 50 years before then that enabled me to do what I did — to go about living as a free American. And it’s because of what this country did 80 years before that, and all the way back to the American Revolution.

On Nov. 11, 2002, Iowa dedicated a memorial near the Capitol to those who served in the Revolutionary War.

On the surface, it seems very strange for Iowa to have such a monument; it did not even become a territory until 57 years after that war ended. The Des Moines Register said 39 veterans of that war are buried in Iowa.

But it makes sense even without that fact. Without that war, Iowa and the United States would not exist. People may not have moved west, may not have had the same pioneer spirit. The Revolution played a part in making this state what it is today, just as wars fought during the state’s lifetime have also done.

It has not been easy. Men who went to serve their country in Vietnam came back only to be spit upon and reviled.

Men and women who worked to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein are accused of participating in an “oil war”.

Today, our military serves both home and abroad to shield this country from the increased threat of terrorism. While the reaction this time is mixed, they deserve the respect the World War II veterans and Vietnam veterans have worked to earn.

This column is running three days after the official Veterans Day, originally Armistice Day to reflect the end of World War I in 1918, “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”.

But today is also Veterans Day. And tomorrow will be, too.

Because what we do each day is in thanks of those veterans. The flag flies across the country and around the world representing both the sacrifices made and the ideals preserved. Because of their efforts, I am free to write this and continue living a civilian life.

While not everything is perfect, nor will it probably ever be, we must continue to remember what those before us have done in defense of this country and what those beside us continue to do now.

When a traveling version of the Vietnam Wall came to my town for display, veterans around the area came for a reading of names and the Boy Scouts handed out poppies to each one in attendance. When I was down to my last one, I worked my way up the bleachers and, as I handed it to one of the vets, he said “Thank you.”

“No,” I responded. “Thank you.” That’s what we all need to say.

Jeff Morrison

is a junior in journalism

and mass communication and political science from Traer. He is a copy editor at the Daily.