Designs on Demand

A lot of our business is for families of currently deployed soldiers. We have really appreciated getting to know the military structure, the families, etc.

This week we are exhibiting at Operation Homecoming USA in Branson, the welcome home for Vietnam veterans that they never received.

Now, I was a little too young to understand what was going on during Vietnam. Just 11 or so. I never could get my mind around the places and events, although I have learned a lot in recent years as I home school my children and teach some group history classes. I’ve made sure that my own children, and the teens I teach, all pay attention to the news happening around them RIGHT NOW. History is in the making, you know. I do this because of my not understanding Viet Nam at their age.

So this week we are in contact with this large group of veterans. I have to admit that I am very aware of current soldiers’ issues, and with my father as a WWII major, very aware of that war as well. But with no precipitating or galvanizing event for Vietnam, as in Pearl Harbor and 9/11, the Vietnam soldiers have not had my attention previously.

I have been impressed with them this week. The ones who go to the traveling Wall still hold very deep feelings, and I can sense these as they walk by. The beautiful art by Mike Teter entitled Reflections, a living weeping man touching the wall, and some of the fallen soldiers reaching from it to touch him, is really stirring. The Vietnam Veterans Association chapter the artist is from is actually at our event and the workers know him personally. Wow.

Even though there was no event that set off the war, per se, they still gave themselves for our freedoms. Back to our children and other teens: it is unbelievable, in a way, that they have grown up after the Cold War. They have no idea of what it was like or the fear that was everywhere. The freedom to not let the world be overrun by communism is what our soldiers fought for then. It’s not that different from our war on terror today, really.

We’re used to seeing our WWII soldiers turn to old men and pass on. It has struck me this week that the same is beginning to happen to our Vietnam soldiers. 30 years since it was over….I remember WWII veterans 30 years after, in 1975, and how many seemed to be quite old.

I guess I’ll close with this thought: 1945 + 30 = 1975 (WWII - Vietnam) 1975 + 30 = 2005 (Vietnam - Iraq) 2005 + 30 = 2035 (another major war, and our beginning to really honor today’s soldiers?)

We feel so privileged to be in contact with today’s military.

Margaret Scheperle
www.designsondemand.com