If you know a WWII vet. Take the time to talk to them. Not about the war, just talk. Most of these guys are alone. Their wives are dead. A lot of their children are in retirement themselves. Their grandchildren don't have time to do anything with them. They're old.
I talked to one this weekend at our Grand Lodge Annual Communication. Wonderful man. I'm proud to call him Brother. He's old, frail and it took forever to walk down the hotel hall with him. But he's sharp as a whip, goes to Lodge every week as he's done for over 70 years. He drove to Madison from Milwaukee to attend the Annual Communication.
Just don't let today go unnoticed. These men did nothing short of saving the world.
I lost my Dad 44 years ago when I was 11. He was on Utah Beach 72 years ago today. 19 years old, scared as hell, praying to get off that damn beach alive. He was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge and got pneumonia. One of the few things he had told me was that in the field hospitals they put those that they thought would die first nearest the doors, so they wouldn't have to carry them past the other wounded. He said he knew he would live when they moved him from the first to the second cot. It caught up to him later. He had one lung and 1/4 of the other removed a year before he died. The resulting stress on his heart was too much.
I posted this in GD and I'm pasting it here. Not to talk up my Dad, which I can easily do. But as an example of our Brothers we are losing every day. It's about the part I highlighted. Find these guys, let them know we love them. They'll be all gone shortly.