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thePeorian.com
The Present
AIR FORCE MEMORIAL
As an Air Force vet I really
enjoyed this tribute to our flyers.
A monument depicting a bomb
burst looks like three unfinished
St. Louis arches to me. There we
had time to really mingle and talk
to almost everyone on the flight.
We saw a beautiful blonde
woman walk around the monu-
ment in a white dress, her blonde
hair blowing in the breeze. The
talkative vets shut up and stared
when she walked by. She remind-
ed us why most of us went off to
war in the first place, and to this
moment I wonder if her visit was
planned and meant to remind us
of all that way back when. We
used to paint beautiful women
like that on our travel bags and
airplanes.
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
(21
steps: Click, Click, Click)
A visit to our National Cem-
etery is gut-wrenching, to say the
least. We were told there could be
350,000
service personnel buried
there and frankly, it irritated
me that they did not know the
exact number. Of course we were
there to not only honor our fallen
but to visit the “Tomb Of The
Unknowns,” as the Honor Guard
soldiers called it.
We met S/Sgt Biert M. Vester-
ing there and we asked him so
many questions I thought the
poor man would turn and run
from us. He told us everything
there was to know and he was
the most perfect soldier I had
ever seen. (Well, only his captain
sparkled a bit more, but they
were both amazing men.)
Veteran Ted Holland takes an up-close photograph at the Vietnam Memorial.
