Some post-Veterans Day reflections.

A veterans visit to our local elementary school.

Ford Ord, California

As some long-time readers will recall and newer readers will now learn, I am a Vietnam War era veteran. I was stationed at Fort Ord on California’s beautiful Monterey Peninsula from 1969 to 1971, after being drafted into the U.S. Army. I did not stay there the entire 24 months, however, because they kicked me out (honorably, fortunately, but still resolutely) for organizing against the war from within the military.

I’ve written about those experiences a number of times over the years, modifying and expanding the story as time goes by (but never exaggerating!) including here on Words for the Wise. If you have not read it before—or even if you have—you might enjoy it, if that is the right word (appreciate it, at least.)

But what I would really like you to read is about my visit to our local elementary school, where each year the students, teachers, and other staff honor local veterans in our community. That community is the historic village of Croton-on-Hudson, NY, right on the Hudson River and about an hour north of New York City by car or train.

I have mentioned before that I publish an online newspaper serving the village and school district called The Croton Chronicle. The publication, which employs the Substack platform (like an increasing number of local journalism outlets), just celebrated its second anniversary, which I wrote about here. Some of the posts are hyper-local and probably of little interest to the broad readership of Words for the Wise. But at times I publish something that I think might be of interest here, and this is one of those cases.

The elementary school’s Veterans Day celebration is held each year and sponsored by the school’s Kindness Club, made up of 4th graders. I am beginning to think we could use a Kindness Club in every community or maybe even on every block. Of course, there are a lot of organizations that do good or at least try to, so the situation is not hopeless; but it is heartening that our local children have taken it upon themselves (with help from adult advisors, of course) to organize such a group.

At any rate, as I describe in this Chronicle article about the event entitled “Reaching across the generations,” the children, under the leadership of their music teacher, sang to us, served us a big breakfast, and then listened to our stories as we visited their classrooms. I was taken to a 4th grade class where I told the kids a lot about my time in the Army, although I did not—for reasons explained in the article—tell them about my anti-war organizing. We did talk about the Vietnam War, however, and how unpopular it was at the end (and the fact that today it is hard to find anyone who will admit they ever thought it was a good idea, similar to the situation with the Iraq War.)

In my story for the Chronicle, I talked a lot about war and the sense of duty of the ordinary soldier, on which “leaders” far from the battlefield heavily rely to get their killing done. Perhaps the members of the Kindness Club will grow up to question the orders they are given; one can hope.

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Musical Moment

I’m thinking this will be a more frequent feature of Words for the Wise, especially since music is such a central part of my life and that of many others.

If you are like me, Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” is probably one of your favorite songs. (And even if you are not like me.) The fact that it is a love song to his late wife Pegi adds to its power and poignance, along with it being a softer and gentler example of Young’s sometimes raucous musical genius.

There are so many covers of this song on YouTube, some of them not bad, and some of them pretty good. I think my favorite is the one posted below by The Brothers Comatose and AJ Lee. Like many, I am a big fan of covers. Why? Perhaps for the same reason I sometimes like to watch shows like “America’s Got Talent.” It is encouraging to know that you don’t necessarily have to be a major musical superstar to do a superb job on a song, even if it’s one you did not write yourself. It’s democratizing, and we can always use more of that.

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