After the parade

I attended two local events to honor veterans this week.  At the parade I saw some veterans who had come out or been brought out in wheelchairs from the nearby VA hospital and veterans' home.  So I would like to offer thanks and remembrance to all the veterans who were in hospitals rather than parades this Veterans Day, and all the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, far from the applause.  My local library had a Veterans Day book display, with books about WWII, WWI, the Civil War, Vietnam, and the Korean War.  The display changed as books were checked out, but I saw no books about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan displayed.  There are plenty of biographies coming out, of course, but for a wider view I recommend two oral histories: Heart of War: Soldier's Voices from the Front Lines in Iraq (Damon Di Marco, editor, NY: Citadel, 2007), and What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers who Fought It (edited by Trish Wood, NY: Little Brown, 2006).  I have not seen an equivalent for Afghanistan, or anything more recent.