Oregon Veterans Memorials Directory… Click on highlighted text for more…
Flame of Freedom…Newport, Oregon Click highlighted text for more…
Two years ago while walking around our City Park in Depoe Bay, Oregon, I stopped to look closely at our town’s VFW Veterans Memorial. When I looked closer, the name Ronald Allen Slane, Sp5, US Army 1967-68 was engraved on the plaque as an example to honor veterans of all wars. Ron was a medic who died during an ambush in Vietnam while trying to save another soldier…he didn’t even have a weapon to defend himself. “Ron Slane, Lincoln City, Oregon, volunteered to go to war as an army medic. He was a conscientious objector, but believed he had a duty to serve in some way.”
I have written many articles in this blog honoring veterans, including my father, Vernon H. Sparks US Navy WWII & Korean War. It has been healing for me to visit veterans and 1st responder memorials during my travels around America since writing and publishing my book in November 2011. I have written about my visits, including personal thoughts and reflections, in this blog since that time. My most recent blog post during our travels to Long Beach, California was about the “Lone Sailor” Memorial, which was built on Ocean Avenue near where my mother lived with first born son, Gerald V. Sparks, while Dad was deployed on the USS West Virginia (BB48) during the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. My oldest brother, Jerry, was born three months before Pearl Harbor in September 1941. Jerry is also a retired US Navy Vietnam Veteran with 30 years of service… I was, of course, born in July of 1946, because Dad survived WWII and came home in June of 1945 after many months fighting in the Pacific War… Because Dad came home from WWII, Jerry was able to grow up with 3 brothers and one sister.
For me, and millions of kids born before and after WWII, Veterans Day, is very personal. Now, in retirement, I devote much of my spare time honoring veterans of all wars, including my father, along with my mother and countless other military families of that time who served too… I also honor my fellow veterans who served during the Vietnam War, and all the wars since then. We can never thank our veterans and their families enough for serving America while protecting the freedoms we enjoy each and every day of our lives. This is a debt that can never be paid back…
So, on this Veterans Day, go visit at least one veterans memorial close to home, and give thanks to all those who have served, who serve now, and will serve in the future, including 1st responders who keep us safe on the home front. Thank the families and loved ones who serve too, and who become the care givers to our heroes who return home with moral and physical injuries that often require a lifetime of healing.
Steve Sparks, Author, Reconciliation: A Son’s Story and My Journey of Healing in Life After Trauma, Part 1 & 2…
