An old vet's pleasure

The local celebrations for Veteran’s Day were a wonderful experience for your old columnist. Editor Bruce covered the event at Central School well. What was not to like, good food for breakfast, the awarding of a plaque inducting me into our High School’s Wall of Fame and a chance to say a few words to the youth present—our future.

Then it was off to McCook’s grade school to watch a great-grandson perform in his school’s Veteran’s tribute. Following a free lunch at Loops Grannie and I helped with one of the last packings of Christmas boxes for Linda Nielsen’s Adopt a Chaplain project. Then off to Kinship Pointe to do another Veterans Day program. Yes, there were other Veterans' celebrations in the area that happened without us. What a wonderful community in which to live.

The closing event was a dinner for all local veterans at Marlene’s Kitchen/Bedsore’s Barn. Again great food (G.Is love to eat), music and a program centered on Wreaths Across America and current doings of Nebraska’s Veteran’s Association. Typical: “Will all WWII veterans please stand” none present. “Korean War veterans” three stood. “The oldest” turned out Henry Koch, then “Vietnam veterans please stand” and about half the room arose. “Who is the oldest?” To my shock, it turned out to be me and I’m only 85 years of age! I received a nice pin and Grannie Annie loved every minute. Yes, I feel blessed to have lived a wonderful life!

The day after Veterans Day the Commemorative Air Force was putting on an airshow in the Dallas area. You may have seen the accident on the internet or TV. Evidently, a WWII P-63 Kingcobra had a mid-air collision with a B-17. It looked to me (speculation) that the fighter was attempting to rejoin in formation with the bomber and somehow misjudged and collided just in front of the tail section of the B-17. Disaster and it wasn’t far to fall to a flaming funeral pyre on the ground. All on board perished — six casualties.

Seeing the pictures and reflecting on the air battles over Germany in WWII reminded me that similar accidents and shootdowns by the Luftwaffe were nearly everyday occurrences for our aircrews. Yes, some of those same men had watched their buddies die and yet the next day went out and flew another mission knowing that the odds were against their survival. For me, that is why we Americans celebrate Veterans Day to recognize and salute the men and women who have sacrificed their time and loss of life to preserve this wonderful country that we proudly call the U.S. of A. May it ever continue in glory.

As this is written our President Joe Biden is meeting with Xi Jinping the Communist Chinese dictator. I view the results of their meeting with trepidation. China keeps building its vaunted military that reportedly is now much larger than our own. Biden seems to be unwilling to take the steps to improve our military which translates to spending more money. Then too Xi keeps talking that he will not back down from his One China policy that basically says that Taiwan is technically a providence of China and therefore the Chinese Communist Party should be in charge. Obviously, Xi has in mind completely taking over, replacing the duly elected government of Taiwan as they recently did in Hong Kong.

Taiwan is the largest manufacturer of semiconductors in the world today. Those semiconductors are essential in our present-day industry with applications ranging from our personal computers, cell phones, automobiles, aviation and about every other electronic application that we use and that are so essential to our everyday life. I somewhat fear that President Biden’s past dealings with China, the very lucrative dealings of the Biden family, might influence his decisions to the detriment of our beloved USA.

Watching the TV news, they point out several gaffs that our President made in front of that international microphone confusing Cambodia, where he actually is with Columbia what 6000 miles away. Still, we can be assured that the President’s keepers traveling with him will explain to the country host what President Biden really meant when he spoke. Still, I can feel sorry that the poor old gentleman is having to deal with his obvious mental deterioration.

On a happier experience, the strong winds that we have been experiencing recently calmed down enough that our son Don and I took our old Aeronca Champ out for a low-altitude tour of our countryside. The crops are mostly harvested and safely in the bin. Our pastures look pretty dry and barren but that is to be expected. Only one boat was on the lake and that looked to be pulled up on the shore with brightly clad gentlemen nearby in the trees probably in search of deer. On down Willow Creek we spotted a couple more hunters using the cedar trees for cover. Good luck to them. Not a bump in the air and we finished with a decent landing. Pure pleasure for a proud old dad.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail