Almost all of my male cousins served in WWII. While they were all proud of their service and of their country's participation in the war, they seldom spoke of their experiences in that war. Most of them had seen quite severe combat as teenagers, but you wouldn't know it from their conversations.
Not surprisingly, they have been dying off over the past several years and none of them has had a military funeral (i.e., military personnel play taps, fold the flag and present it to the veteran's survivors). Yesterday, I went to the funeral of another of these veterans and was surprised to see that it was a military funeral. Walter was as quiet as my other cousins with regard to his war service. While politically conservative, he was by no means jingoist. Yet, his coffin was draped with the flag and taps were played.
I wonder whether other veterans of all our wars also have a military funeral now. Is this another artifact of our times - i.e., the war against terror, the us vs. them mentality that this country is developing?
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