The meaning of Memorial Day can sometimes be lost amid the holiday fun of picnics, barbecues, and shopping.
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Military veterans, however, appreciate the holiday at a deeper level than most of us.
“Dignity, integrity, and pride,” said Air Force veteran Nathaniel Thomas, discussing the meaning of Memorial Day.
Thomas is among a breakfast club of retired military vets, some in their 80s and 90s, who gather every day for breakfast at a McDonald’s in Miami. This routine has been going on for more than 20 years, with camaraderie and fellowship the main items on the menu. They are Black Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines who understand each other.
“Yes it does, it does, it really does,” said Air Force vet Charlie Powell when I asked him if it helps to hang out with other vets on Memorial Day. “Because all these guys that served, like me, all disabled veterans, that’s the whole thing.”
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“We did what we had to do!” said Ransom Broadhurst, still traumatized by his service in Vietnam and the culture shock of coming home at age 19. “This lady, she walked up to us and she pointed at all three of us with her finger right in my face, maybe six inches from my face and she screamed out baby killer, right there in the airport, baby killer, baby killer.”
He remembers that moment, “Just like yesterday.”
The McDonald’s franchise owners, the Cabrera and Betancourt families, set up a special table for the missing. It pays tribute to those who lost their lives in combat or to vets from the breakfast club who pass away, like Leonard Hopkins, a B29 gunner who passed away recently. Memorial Day, his friends told us, is about remembering those who served.
“It’s celebrating the service itself, all the fallen soldiers, not only the fallen but all the soldiers who came back, they came back with problems, too,” Nathaniel Thomas said, adding that rather than thanking him for his service, he wishes the public would stop taking the military for granted.
“I wonder do they really understand what serving this country was about? The fact that you don’t have Russian troops or Chinese troops marching up and down the street,” Thomas said.
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