In my younger days, veterans were everywhere.
Harvey Smith, the local grocer who would later become mayor of our small Carolina town for 34 years, served in Europe during World War II. Henry Shore, father of my good friend Dickie, also fought there, and Jim McNeely, the redheaded, lively minister of Boonville Methodist Church, had flown as a navigator aboard a bomber over Germany. Other men I knew less well had also done their duty. In my boyhood, all these veterans were in their mid to late 30s, working, married, and raising families.
