The Stories We Need to Remember
With the honoring of Veteran’s Day this month, I am reminded of the power that a well-told story can wield.
War, since the beginning of mankind, has been recorded in stories. Those tales range from barbaric to heroic, from tragic to patriotic, reminding us that conflict brings out both the best and worst in people. They serve to warn, to inspire, to encourage.
We tell those accounts in an effort to remember, to honor; we also tell them in order that we may not forget the consequences of the past.
Stories may be our greatest asset when viewing the past, but they are also easily lost. In an attempt to commit these stories to memory, we too often let them fade into the bleak, unrelenting passage of time. As time continues its rhythmic, eternal march, the power of these images from the past erodes into an unmemorable, indistinct fragment of what was once told. But we must not let this happen, for far too much is at stake.
I first learned of a story’s power while still in high school. Through my parents, I became friends with a veteran in my town named Joe. A native North Carolinian born in the 1920s, Joe was already in his early nineties when we met. He spent his career as a pilot, training crews in World War II, flying in the Korean conflict, participating in the Vietnam War, and eventually working in Iran before…
