Coast Chronicles: Veterans Lunch at the Moose Lodge

Published 9:03 am Monday, November 14, 2022

“With every passing Veterans Day, there are fewer veterans in America to thank.”

—Peter Coy, New York Times

Winter runs apace

I think we’re in for a cold one this year. I woke up Monday morning last week to snow on the Willapa Hills — one of the earliest dustings in my memory. Cold nights means the stars have been brilliant, and that full moon! Though the lunar eclipse night was cloudy, the nights following were stunningly clear: there is Cassiopeia; there the Pleiades, those seven sisters all in a clump; Mars shines in the eastern sky; the Dippers pour into each other.

Though it’s been cold, it’s bracing to be outside even if it’s raining. A friend gave Jackson a coat that didn’t fit her charming rescue guy, so out we go all rigged up. I’ve got my raincoat and boots by the door. It’s time to hang up those cotton shirts and get out the sweaters. And, glory be, I’ve arranged to pick up a load of apple wood on my next trip over the Cascades.

Some folks say we don’t have seasons here — I beg to differ. They’re just not like the usual ones. (Can we say we still have “normal’ seasons?) Though fall was squished in between dry summer days and Indian Summer days, we did have leaves that changed color and fell (still happening in my yard). And now these winter days are wet and darker than ever. (I beg our congressional reps, please do whatever you have to do to stop this stopping, starting, falling-back and springing-forward madness. Washingtonians voted to stay on daylight savings time; we agreed on it. So please! The Seattle Times explains all: tinyurl.com/mdxrzmbe.)

We had three days of sun in a row last week and a few remaining Woolly Bears came out along the bay in Oysterville for their last hurrah. This is — as I tell my city friends — life in the fast lane on the Peninsula.

And they’ve done it again

The fifth annual Peninsula Vet Lunch went off without a hitch this past Veterans Day at the Moose Lodge. Created and organized by Nanci Main, it has flourished and grown every year, both in terms of attending veterans — nearly 100 this year — and 30-plus volunteer team members making it happen.

As Nanci said, “I was so grateful that there were so many parts of the lunch that expressed gratitude to the vets attending — beginning right when they pulled in the parking lot and were greeted by Marla and Gary McGrew. And right down the line from the time they walked in the door and were welcomed by four members of the Coast Guard Flotilla 62 — all the way down — to seeing the cake in their honor. To Steve Kovach and Rita Nicely making sure we had their correct phone numbers. To Connie Davis making their name tags. To all the volunteers and the ladies of the Moose who came to the tables to fill water glasses and coffee cups. To arriving at the buffet line and having each plate filled to their specifications. (And a special thanks to the Senior Center’s John Vale who cooked 140 pounds of pot roast and made five gallons of gravy!) Right down to the homemade pies made by members of our community. I said, ‘There’s a special ingredient in each of these homemade pies — love.’ And then to saying goodbye to each of the vets at the door and handing them another piece of pie to take home. As I looked out over the crowd, I thought, these people are the reason I get to vote.”

May we never fail to act on this privilege our veterans have secured for us.

Story tellers

Though every year the number of veterans honored at the lunch has grown, in general this is counter to a trend that New York Times journalist Peter Coy reported. Coy pointed out that the number of living American veterans fell to 16.5 million last year from 26.4 million in 2000. (In 1945 we had 12.1 million active duty troops, and today we have 1.4 million.) Those numbers seem to be a good thing, right? During this period of relative peace, we need fewer vets to defend our democracy and the freedoms we often take for granted.

A fly on the wall

Some spouses still don’t understand why the lunch is a vets-only invitation. It’s not a family affair — it’s a time for vets to talk to each other in the ways that only they can. Being in the military is a special club full of honor, bravery, horror, and camaraderie. I was fortunate enough to be hanging around taking some photos during the lunch and couldn’t help but hear little snippets of conversation as I flitted here and there like a fly on the wall:

Full speed ahead

100 mm gun

the last time they came around we dropped our pants and mooned ‘em

I was at Guadalcanal

we were told to pick up Cubans in the water — if we saw them we had to pick them up

I joined my auxiliary

I got out in the 80s

oh you were in there for awhile

I retired at 60

the Coast Guard required it

all in

if you can dive the Pacific Coast — California, Washington, Oregon — you can dive anywhere

it’s dark and cold

those currents!

we know the depth of Monterey Bay

the berm was steep

you couldn’t stand up

we were in Astoria waiting for the ship to be finished

get a ship-over bonus

my service records got lost

everything is digitized now

Katrina destroyed my reserve records

high and tight

they call it the Flying Seven — shots in both arms

and Bi-cillin in your butt

the next morning your legs don’t work

On the other hand, Coy continues, “But it’s a problem too. The military still needs troops in this dangerous world, and recruiting suffers when there are fewer veterans to serve as role models and story tellers.” The vet lunch this year was a perfect example. I don’t know what the average age in the room was, but I’m guessing there were few vets younger than 60. The stories bouncing around the room will be lost as we lose our vets. And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Should our vets put the horrors of war behind them? Or do we need to ask our veterans to wander back into their memory banks to talk about what they saw, what they did, and what they felt?

One of our volunteers at the Moose lunch said, “These veterans served us, now it’s time we serve them” But is it enough? Do we provide enough support when our vets come home? Many of them are angry, damaged, discouraged, wounded. It’s been shown that many in the military have fallen into white supremacist groups in order to find the camaraderie they miss when they return to “real life” (tinyurl.com/2haztmub).

Vets need better options. They need more VA hospitals (tinyurl.com/yzshxzj3); more acknowledgment of and attention paid to PTSD; and they should be talking to our younger generations. Because war is not about glory, though so many video games attracting kids pretend that it is. It’s about living in a swampy foxhole for months, or watching your best buddy die in your arms.

Let’s keep honoring our vets. And let’s keep asking for their stories.