The Way We Get By tonight PBS POV for Veteran's Day

[Mel]

PBS POV is airing a documentary tonight in honor of Veteran's Day.

The Way We Get By

If you have a tv, the time or the inclination, you should watch it.

The trailer leaves me in pieces:




For several years I coordinated a used book sale with our elementary school. One of the charities we gave extra books to was Operation Paperback, started ten years ago by a military wife whose husband asked her to send books to him overseas. It is an amazing charity, as rewarding as any I've ever supported. It is very personal and challenging to find specific requests and send them directly to servicemen and women, and even more humbling to receive the emails and letters of thanks, to really understand what a book can mean to someone living in a war zone. Some read to escape and destress on their downtime, others want textbooks to help plan for a life when they return home, while others collect children's books to start local libraries in needy communities. A thing of beauty.

Anyway, Operation Paperback is promoting this very touching documentary about elderly troop greeters in Bangor Maine.

It is very sobering to remember how long we have been at war and how far off peace can seem sometimes.

Hope you have a safe and peaceful Veteran's Day!

[Mel]

That's my Poppy, Peter MacVeigh in front, his wife, my Gramma Emily that my Em is kneeling over and their daughter, my aunt Judy's marker that my boy is cleaning off. I would love to tell you a fantastic war story about Poppy, but the truth is he spent the WWI patrolling the Alaska coast as a ship's cook. I believe he got busted for running poker tables! He was very patriotic, though, leaving college and a football scholarship to enlist. He tried to re-enlist for WWII, but failed the physical, so he built ships in Baltimore's harbors while Emily went off to the factories as a Rosie Riveter building Dolittle bombers. Emily's great grandfather fought at Valley forge with his dad, who was killed in battle in Pennsylvania. Amazing stuff. These are my Dad's people, he enlisted and arrived in Germany as the peace treaty was being signed. Whew. I'm actually a card carrying member of the local VFW, in his honor.

My cousin, Lt. Col. Baker, recently retired, thank goodness, served two tours in Iraq, went over with the invading troops and set up hospitals. The shit she saw.

I watched that documentary and cried buckets, and the one on before it, Area 60, which is the section of the national cemetary for the Iraq conflict soldiers, it was even sadder. Such sorrow, such loss. I liked the message of hope and giving the way we get by had at its core.

I get all weepy when it comes to military service, must be those patriot genes. Sadly the cynical rebel genes and pacifist liberal leanings prevent me from serving myself!

[Deb S]

Oh my god, Mel. Crying into my morning tea. And this is just a trailer. Oh my. A friend and I were lamenting how the TV news networks don't even mention the war. It's all celebrities' pimples. Can you imagine the WWII generation going a day not huddled over the radio to hear war news? We send kids over there in harm's way and go shopping. Whose grave is that above, gerd?