Men of war, aged by time, are something to behold. Some become bitter, some broken. Some remain resentful. Then there are others. These men, perhaps no truer treasures than their ill-fated brethren, continue to shine.
One man returned two emaciated soldiers, toothless victims of another tongue, more than sixty years ago to their homes. He remembers the smiles that raced across otherwise devastated faces. He remembers learning of home, an entire world away from his own.
Another man airlifted food into the starving belly of a civilian land cut off from the world breaking into pieces atop it each day. He remembers the return trip, steering his plane with welling eyes as he looked earthward to find a field of tulips cut to spell two words—thank you. Strangers taught him mercy and grace through his own actions.
These men have been called heroes, along with a thousand other fitting titles. They deserve to be treasured still, wondered upon by new eyes and ears. Despite what should so seem their fate, though, these men are bound inevitably by their own mortality. So too are their stories—stories that simply must be told again and again throughout history—if a generation chooses. Whether that choice is not to listen or simply to wait, the result becomes more similar each day.
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