Many Ways To Thank Our Vets

This week we mark Veterans Day.

We hope everyone in our community will take a moment to recognize, silently or in person, the sacrifices our local servicemen and women have made, and continue to make, on our behalf.

In Dayton, the American Legion hosts its annual Veterans Day breakfast 7 - 10 a.m. Friday at the American legion Hall. In Waitsburg, author Karen Fisher-Alaniz will speak at the Veterans Day Assembly at Waitsburg High School at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Her new book "Breaking The Code," recalls how her father, WHS graduate Murray Fisher, was part of a small group of code breakers during World War II. She will sign copies of her book at Waitsburg Hardware & Mercantile at 11 a.m. and after the high school assembly.

The Touchet Valley is blessed with a large number of men and women who, at one point in their lives, decided they wanted to make one of the most selfless commitments possible by volunteering or answering the call to put themselves in harm's way, thus shielding the lives and freedoms of others.

Columbia County alone has 500 veterans of various wars, while dozens more live in the Waitsburg-Prescott area.

The Times caught up with one of them, Iraq veteran Bill Massey, who served there in 2004 - 2005 as a National Guardsman through his advance maintenance unit based in Spokane.

Most Veterans Day events draw a high number of older veterans from WW II, Korea and Vietnam. In part, this is because many of them are retired and have more flexible schedules. Younger veterans like those from the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan still have full-time jobs and do not always get or take the day off.

And in part, it's because the younger veterans have not been as active in local veterans groups like the American Legion, according to Dayton resident and veterans activist Brian Black, who served in Vietnam. He believes some of them haven't felt as emotionally connected to the veterans community as their older counterparts.

That used to be the case for Massey. Now 47, he has long been a military man, joining the Army at age 18 and later signing up for the National Guard, of which he was a part until 2008.

But he didn't join Dayton's American Legion until about a year ago, following his own 19-year-old son Brandon's commitment to join the service after graduating as a Bulldog this year (he will enter the service at the end of January) and following his own experience in Iraq.

"I've always been proud to be a veteran, but it didn't used to mean as much to me," he said. "But now (after being in Iraq), I have a different respect for people who served."

Being in an active combat zone deepened his connection to others like him who served in foreign wars over the generations, something no civilian will ever share but can acknowledge on Veterans Day.

And for that moral support and the increasing number of personal thank yous they get for serving these days, veterans like Massey are grateful.

They are also grateful for the growing number of invitations they get to be publicly recognized during national holiday celebrations (such as Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day) and community events like Mule Mania, the Columbia County Fair and so on.

Nowadays, community support and recognition of veterans is much more spread out through the year, because everyone knows someone who has served in the past or is serving now in Iraq or Afghanistan, Massey said.

"It's an awareness everybody has, especially in small towns, because it has touched everybody's lives," he said.