I was about nine years old. My family had just pulled into the Kroger parking lot, about to pick up some groceries for the week. It must have been near Memorial Day, because set up in the parking lot was a table decorated in red, white, and blue, and some veterans standing behind it. Apparently if you made a donation you’d receive some sort of gift. Checking it out from my seat in the car, I was curious. But in my nine-year-old mind I had only a hazy idea of what the word donation meant. I assumed that you gave a little money and then got a nice, big, free gift.
This seemed like a good cause to me. In my wallet I had some birthday money and was willing to part with one dollar (even though I felt like this was a lot). My parents gave me permission, and watched me as I walked over to the table. I’m sure that my mom and dad reminded me to say “thank you for your service” to the veterans. I remember feeling really grown up to be able to do something like this all by myself.
At the table, I glanced shyly at the old men smiling down at me. They were wearing ballcaps with various insignias, which I knew nothing about. And I’m sure I didn’t have the nerve to thank them for their service. I was too shy. Besides, to me they were just a bunch of old men who very, very, long ago did some fighting in some war. Now I realize they were most likely WWII vets.
I clutched my dollar and had second thoughts as I looked over the contents of the table—the things you got in return for a donation. Maybe I should just forget the whole thing, I thought, and go in the store and buy my favorite flavor of chewing gum, or even some Disney princess stickers. The men kindly seemed to understand my hesitation and didn’t tell me that this wasn’t meant to be a place to shop.
The thing that caught my eye was a large US flag. It seemed particularly special, and extra red, white, and blue. I handed over my precious cash and looked tellingly toward that flag, hoping they would take the hint. I was let down when one of the old men graciously passed me a quite ordinary (and quite small) US flag as a thank you for my donation.
I didn’t understand why those veterans kept smiling at me. I guess not many little girls had approached their donations table that day with birthday dollars.
I wish I’d looked harder at those old men. I might have glimpsed, reflected in their eyes, snippets of what they’d seen and done on the fighting front for little girls like me. If I’d used my imagination and peeled away sixty or seventy years of their age, I’d have seen not stooped elderly men, but young men—laughing, mischievous, perhaps a bit cocky—slim, straight, and in uniform. I can still see the face of the one old man in particular. I have no idea who he was or how he served. But I believe he was pleased that I’d given my dollar.
Today, I still have the flag. It’s carefully rolled up and tucked away in a special place. And now that I’m a young adult, I have a deep interest in learning the stories of the veterans of WWII. I don’t want them to be forgotten. I want to remember, and I want them to live on.
