A Very Different Veterans Day Salute

Take a closer look at the photograph posted above.  Some of you probably remember this picture.  Others will not.  Tell me.  What do you see?

War-related photography isn’t typically thought of as appealing.  War isn’t pleasing to the eye.  But 40 years after it was taken, this photo endures as one of the most joyously searing images I’ve ever seen.  I remember it well when I first saw it as a child of 11, and having viewed it many more times since over the years, like many people, I’ve come to associate this picture with the end of the Vietnam War.  In short, it’s a happy picture.

This photograph was actually taken at a U.S. Air Force Base in 1973.  It was shot by Associated Press photographer Sal Veder, who later won a Pulitzer Prize for his work.  It’s a snapshot of former Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm reuniting with his family out on the tarmac, after spending five torturous years as a prisoner-of-war locked up in North Vietnam.  This photo came to symbolize not only the immeasurable sacrifices of those who served in battle, but also helped to remind us of the heavy costs paid by those left behind — at home.

This photo appears to show a happy reunion.  But other veterans and their families didn’t experience moments like this.  There were no welcoming embraces at airports captured by award-winning photographers in their remembrances.  There were no tears of joy.  Instead, there was just lingering silence and anonymity.

Even still, this remarkable photograph of a joyous reunion doesn’t entirely reveal the whole truth.  It masks the real story of what was happening within that family at that very instant.  Behind the scenes, there’s much more to this photo than just the smiling faces we see in the picture.  Much more.  I’ll get to that a bit later.

I chose to write about this photo on Veterans Day because it prompts us to focus on something most of us never think about.

Behind the soldiers, and the missions, and the medals, and the parades, and all the trappings of military service, there are still others.  There’s another much larger group of people who have also made tremendous sacrifices.  These are the husbands, wives, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, mothers, fathers, and friends of all those who serve in uniform.  While the enlisted men and women receive a well-deserved salute, those who surround and support them are often forgotten.

Yes, the heroes of service should receive our recognition — and appreciation.  We’ve even made this reverence into a national holiday.  Three holidays, in fact — Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July.  But what about all the others who have also sacrificed?

What about all those mothers who raise the kids — alone?  What about the moms and dads who wait back home, wondering if there might be a knock at the door someday accompanied by two serious-looking men with sober faces.  What about the wives and girlfriends who wait?  What about those who still must somehow go on with their daily rituals, that is without the help of someone they love, because that person has been sent 12,000 miles away to fight in a war with no end in sight?  What do we make of them?  Where’s their national holiday?  Where is their special day of remembrance?

There isn’t one.

On this day, they are all forced to grin and bear it yet one more time.  And after the parades and the speeches, tomorrow they must return to their routine yet again — be it stocking grocery shelves or taking the kids to school — and continue on without those they need the most.

Some military spouses make this better than others.  Most never voice a complaint.  To do so would seem selfish, and perhaps inconsequential compared with those in harm’s way.  So, they remain silent.  They become invisible.

Others simply can’t take it.  And who can blame them?  They try.  Just about everyone who cares about someone in the military tries to go through the motions and do the right thing.  But all men and women are mortal.  We all have breaking points.  We all have times when we have to admit we’ve had enough.

Back in 1973, that’s what finally happened to Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm and his family.

Remember the photograph above?  Well, just a few days before this photo was taken, Stirm’s wife sat down and wrote her husband a letter.  No doubt, that must have been a tough letter to write.  As he was departing Vietnam and flying back to the United States, Stirm received the handwritten letter from his wife, while on a short layover in The Philippines.  Imagine opening and then reading such a letter after spending five horrific years locked up in a Vietcong prison cell.  Think of what that must have been like to be sustained by the love of your family and hope that you’d be reunited someday, only to see that faith shattered after opening an envelope and taking out the letter that was inside.

In that letter, Stirm’s wife wrote she was leaving him.  The separation and loneliness was just too painful.  She went on to remarry just a year later.  While Mrs. Stirm wasn’t ever interviewed by the media, and the reasons for her heart-wrenching decision are speculative, one can surmise that being separated from her husband for such a long time was too much a burden to bear.  She too was trapped in her own cell for five long years.  She found an escape from this solitary confinement.

What happened here is hardly an isolated incident.  To this day, veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq return home as different people to families and friends who aren’t the same anymore, either.  It was though they were robbed of that time in their lives, and can never get it back.  People do change.  Even continents drift.

Yes, the scars of war do cut deep, and long after the shooting stops.  And those battle scars affect not only those who served but also those who stayed at home — and waited and waited.  And cried.

War produces far too many victims.  We should try to remember them all on Veterans Day.

Especially the families — who are too often ignored and pushed off to the side.  They’re usually the ones applauding and cheering the loudest when it is they who deserve our thanks.  Remember, they have sacrificed, too.