Alaska News

Our view: Armed Forces Day

Tomorrow's day of appreciation for military members and their families is no departure for Anchorage and the rest of Alaska. We're a city and state with a military tradition young but strong, with more veterans per capita than any other state in the Union. Two ceremonial events will mark this year's Armed Forces Day -- the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the just-opened new Veterans Affairs clinic, and the groundbreaking ceremony for the Anchorage Fisher House, which will provide housing for the families of wounded and injured military members so that they can be near their loved ones.

These are real ways of saying thanks, of shoring up the home front for both active military and veterans.

All over town today, military members and their families will enjoy discounts, some just for the day, some standard, from the Alaska Zoo to the Saturday Market. Those gestures count, both in dollars and care.

It's a good day, too, to remember those care packages. The United States has troops serving from Germany to Iraq to Afghanistan to Korea, in posts of various hardships, most of them missing families and friends.

Anyone who has sent a package abroad, filled out that customs form and memorized a unit address has probably heard the reaction from the recipient, whether a spouse or a stranger.

Taste of home, words of home, pictures of home all make a difference. So does the answer to a special request -- whether it's 100 percent Deet to defend against flies and camel spiders in Iraq or a pair of running shoes to replace those worn down on stony ground in Helmand Province.

That's why the organization Support Our Troops is using this Armed Forces Day to remind people that while many of us may have put foreign wars on the back burner, tens of thousands of troops and their families are living with those wars every day. The point? Keep those cards, letters and packages coming. They make a difference.

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Elise Patkotak remarked on the strength of the spouses left behind in these pages on Wednesday, marveling at a godchild's perseverance. Families pay a price, too, sometimes a terrible price but more often the price of daily endurance. They draw strength from other spouses and children who maintain the home fires -- and any act of kindness and respect from the rest of us.

Those things matter, too -- the thanks for service, the act of respect, the smile and wave. We have special occasions like Saturday, and Memorial Day, and the Anchorage Chamber's annual Military Appreciation Week in June. These are all good.

But it's the ordinary acts of neighbors that matter, too -- to keep an eye on someone's house while they're gone, lend a hand with kids or just ask how things are going.

Armed Forces Day is 60 this year, having been born in 1950 when President Harry Truman declared the third Saturday in May to recognize the troops. U.S. forces served around the world then. They still do. Let's keep them in mind.

BOTTOM LINE: Armed Forces Day reminds us to say thanks to our men and women in the military.

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