This column appeared in the November edition of the Lake Minnetonka Navigator (MN):
Veterans Day 2000:
A Lesson In Duty, Honor and Country
By H.P. Barrett III
Henry Sublette is now in his eighties, slightly bent and slow of gait. His hearing isn't what it use to be and I've watched him read - twisting in the light to recast the shadows that fall across the page and his eyes.
His heart is strong and his blood is pure. Perhaps the cardiovascular system may not medically test so positive, but for those who have been blessed by his joyful presence, he is a man among men.
I met Henry, recently, at the Veterans Hospital in Big Spring, Texas where he now resides at the nursing home with his wife Lorraine to whom the years have not been so kind. Although crippled physically and mentally, Lorraine, herself a veteran, is still a beautiful woman.
Veterans who come and go at that facility marvel at Henry's dedication to his wife. Caring for her as much as he is able, he stays by her side day and night and watches over her. And at least twice a day, Henry Sublette will push her in a small bed out into the sunshine and quietly "walk" her up and down the long, gently sloping sidewalk that faces the hospital - the one that passes beneath the grand flag.
But this story began over 50 years ago.
Henry Sublette survived the infamous 1942 Bataan Death March and more than three brutal years as a Japanese POW. Death, by his own admission seemed at times to be expected, accepted and preferable, "I didn't care any more, I couldn't care," Sublette remembers.
When liberation finally came at the end of the war, Sublette was still given little if any chance to survive being so undernourished, and physically and emotionally ravaged. But survive he did with the help of the miracle named Lorraine.
This angel of mercy nursed Henry Sublette back into the world cleansing his wounds, nourishing his body and tortured soul, and "hiding my liquor!"
"She saved my life in more ways than one," he tells everyone, "I was so bad then, in many ways, but she always stuck by me and now it's my turn to take care of her!"
There are monuments, memorials, walls and parades to honor those who served, but perhaps it is the men and women like the Sublettes who personify Veterans Day. They are the blood, guts, courage and love that lives on to remind us why so many served, fought, and even died.
I know thousands of veterans, like Henry and Lorraine Sublette, who believe that Veterans Day, like Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Thanksgiving belong to the family - present, past and future.
# # #
|
