Veterans Day and LeRoy Tarver

It's Veteran's Day!   I remember the years that my brother, Jim, served in Viet Nam and re-reading the letters he sent to Mama.   Those also serve who sit and clench their hands and wait for their loved one to come home and they can start to breathe again.   My grandson, Landon Cheben, just returned from Afghanistan, so I have a recent reminder.   I also had a reminder last week when I attended a visitation for Casey McCausland in St. Louis who came home five years ago with PTS and has spent these year struggling daily with the after-effects.

But my earliest scary Veteran's Day event was when Leroy Tarver was the first person killed in Mississippi County in World War II and his parents, Sam Henderson and Essie Tarver, lived behind our big house on the highway and farmed on the halves with Daddy on garden acreage.   Sam and Essie came to see Daddy and asked him if he would do the service.  He said he would be honored.   Did I say that Sam and Essie and LeRoy were black!   White preachers preached in white churches and black preachers preached in black churches in that time and in Mississippi County!   Some people thought that Daddy should not do this --"Let them get their own people to do this!   Some people around here will not take kindly to this and they are making comments about you doing this and stirring others up."    I was scared to death and I tried to tell my Dad not to go.   He said to me, "When someone fired that gun, they did not ask what color the man was!  I consider this an honor that the family came to me.   There is nothing left to say!"

So, "Cotton Ears", as we all called Leroy, I could say that Daddy did that for you.  But he did it for himself and what he considered to be right.  We all have our mission in life!  

I remember Daddy and Landon and all the other Veteran's today...and their families who sat and waited...

on Veteran's Day!