Reminder, when any of our military comes home.

Sad but uplifting story of gratitude. And remember, thank a vet at any time. You never know what they might have went through. Its not just your actual physical life being put on the line. Its your way of life disrupted too


Crazy Vibes
@CrazyVibes_1

My father has cancer. Stage four. The VA said maybe four months. He served three tours in Vietnam and came home to people spitting on him, calling him baby killer, telling him his service meant nothing. He never talked about the war. Never wore his medals. Never went to reunions. Just carried fifty-two years of shame for doing what his country asked him to do.

Last month hospice started coming to the house and I realized I had no idea how to honor him, how to tell him his life mattered when he'd spent half a century believing it didn't. So I posted in a quilting group asking if anyone made military quilts, and a woman responded immediately. She'd found me through a shop where she runs a business making Quilts of Valor for dying veterans. She said “I'll start tonight.”

She finished it in three weeks, worked around the clock because Dad's time is short. Every star is hand-stitched. Every stripe is perfectly aligned. She shipped it express and included a letter thanking him for his service, telling him that her father died alone believing nobody cared that he'd served. She said “Let your dad know the country was wrong. His service mattered. He matters.”

We wrapped him in it yesterday. This photo is him seeing it for the first time. He cried for twenty minutes, kept touching the stars, kept saying “Someone made this for me?” I've started coordinating with other quilters now, connecting dying veterans with makers who can get quilts finished in time. Racing against cancer, against time, against fifty years of men dying before anyone told them thank you.

Dad has maybe six weeks now. But he'll leave wrapped in stars.

By Angela mcnutt



Note: this is not me or my dad. I just posted the story. Link to tweeter who posted it and they likely know how to get in touch if so inclined

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