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Veterans Day 2018 #VeteransDay

To honor my many family members who have served in the military …

To honor my dear surrogate grandfather, Ted Albers (RIP), who was drafted into the Army at the age of 34, captured at the Battle of the Bulge, and held as a POW under the end of WWII …

To honor my husband, a Vietnam-era Navy veteran who flew in P3s looking for Russian submarines …

To honor them, I’ve made a donation to The New York Bar Foundation’s fundraiser to assist veterans in need of legal services (https://nylawyerslovevets.swell.gives/).

Don’t just thank a veteran for his or her service. Hug them. Hold them close and tell them you love them. Support them. Make sure what they fought for is not denied to them.

Marie A Bailey

9 responses to “Veterans Day 2018 #VeteransDay”

  2. Way to go! My grandfather was shot down in Germany in WWII. I worked with the diary he kept in a research methods class in graduate school. I need to find a home for that piece and his diary. He mostly writes about food because he was starving.

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    • Ted didn’t keep a diary and he rarely talked about his treatment as a POW. The one thing he would say, to me and other members of my family, is that he was beaten badly enough he could never have children. The irony was that Ted was German. He was born in the US but he knew enough German to piss off the German soldiers who were guarding him and the other POWs. That’s wonderful that you have a diary. I have a few letters that Ted’s sister wrote to him and some news clippings and photos, but that’s it. Kind of sad because he was a big part of my life when I was growing up. I remember he was bitter. When my husband and I unearthed his medals from his attic, he said to keep them. He didn’t even want to look at them.

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