American vets look like we do

Black and white photographs of World War I don't do it justice -- or at least they do spare us the pain of seeing the colors of that horrible "War to End All Wars."

Our ancestors knew of the sights, sounds and smells of war first-hand -- they knew them well enough that signing of the armistice on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, became a national holiday.

"Armistice Day" turned into Veterans Day under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and it's one of the last national holidays to be celebrated with its original intention -- speeches by veterans themselves and other observances honoring those who have kept our nation free.

The PBS film series, "The War," covered discrimination of some who served, blacks and Japanese, specifically, illustrating the fact that war affected people coming in a rainbow of hues.

Minorities ranging from the black Tuskegee Airmen elite 332 Fighter Group, to the Navajo "Code Talkers" to Japanese like Hershey's own Ben Kuroki, served proudly under our flag of red, white and blue.

Now that all wars are recorded in living color, a review of U.S. Census Bureau data shows how far we've come from the all male, mostly white force of World War I.

Of the 23.7 million veterans who lived in the United States in 2006, 1.7 million were female and 16 percent of those were veterans of the Gulf War.

That same year, 2.4 million were black, 1.1 million were Hispanic, 292,000 Asian, 169,000 American Indian or Alaskan, and 28,000 were Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.

In short, American veterans look a lot like all Americans do -- and all deserve the same respect and honor on this Veterans Day observance.