Military Update: Older veterans bothered by strain of current wars

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Military Update: Older veterans bothered by strain of current wars
By Tom Philpott, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, November 14, 2009

A small group of U.S. war veterans, the age difference among them as wide as 70 years, gathered last Saturday at American Legion Post 177 in Fairfax, Va., for a special event at the annual Veterans Day Community Fair.

They had agreed to participate in a “living history,” co-hosted by VFW Post 8469, and organized by its commander, Floyd Houston, a man committed to ensuring local war heroes, old and young, don’t fade away.

For two hours they told war stories and stood by to answer questions that never came from local Boy Scouts seeking to earn merit badges for their time there. The public too was welcomed but didn’t show.

What they missed was more than the usual compelling personal accounts of war. They missed how deeply some veterans of past wars are disturbed by burdens being carried by the current generation of volunteers.

Avon Blevins, a retired Navy chief, began his talk by pulling a few mementos from a paper bag. He was a teenager aboard USS O’Brien when that destroyer escorted 50 landing craft, with 200 infantrymen apiece, toward Omaha Beach on D-Day.


Rest of article at:http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66080