Veterans Day 2020

Veterans Day has always been very meaningful to my family. I was born 76 years ago when my father, a young Army officer, was fighting the Japanese on New Guinea. His father was a career Army officer who served in World War I as well as the Spanish American War and other conflicts as a cavalry officer on the American frontier. I was the third Colonel Matt C.C. Bristol.

My brother Roger served a full career in the Navy, and I served a full career in the Air Force, retiring over thirty years ago. My son and namesake Matt IV served with the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq during the first Gulf War, and is now an official in the Office of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. My cousin Allen is a West Point graduate who served two tours in Vietnam and one in the Dominican Republic, and still lives with wounds he sustained in selfless service to our country. After military service, he had a successful career as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice Criminal Division. We served there together for six years.

This Veterans Day morning found me somewhat depressed. Not just because of the rainy weather and the still out of control pandemic that has impacted traditional Veterans Day observances, but also because our Commander in Chief just won’t stop his cumulative embarrassing conduct and start thinking about our country and those who serve to protect all our people. I need not say any more about this man/child whose conduct continues to be so highly divisive and damaging to our country and national security. He is a disgrace.

And just when I was feeling down, my son sent me the picture above. Years ago, his duties included organizing and helping execute the Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington Cemetery, and his dad managed to fit in to his old uniform to assist. How blessed I am to have such an awesome son! He simply lights up any room he enters, with his engaging smile...and he is much better looking than his dad.

So my memories of truly awesome past Veterans Days were revived, the pandemic faded from my consciousness, and let it rain! It’s a GREAT DAY! And we the United States of America will survive our current President and his enablers, most of whom never served in harms way.

Subject only to divine Providence, our truly awesome military forces are the ultimate guarantors of our security, our democratic republic and successfully meeting threats posed by all enemies of freedom, both foreign and domestic. To quote FDR, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Take heart, America. We will be OK. God has not abandoned us, nor is He asleep or caught by surprise.

HAPPY VETERANS DAY!