Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Veterans Day

This probably sounds stupid, but I thought I'd write it anyway because it makes me angry.

My dad is a United States Vietnam War Veteran. For as long as I have been an adult, I've sent him a Veterans Day card in the mail. I appreciate his service, more so now that I'm a mother of two young children. When my dad went, he left voluntarily to be a doctor in the War and he had a wife and a 1-year-old daughter at the time.

So last year, I went to two Walgreens stores to find Veterans Day cards. Neither had one, and I ended up fuming to the person working there, writing an email to the Walgreens website and finally bought a "Thank You" card and wrote something in it to my dad about the injustice of not being able to find a Veterans Day card at Walgreens.

So this year, I was down on State Street this morning and decided, heck, to go to the Veterans Museum because I figured...they would DEFINITELY have Veterans Day cards and probably good ones, too.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? You'd really think so, right? You'd be wrong. They don't have Veterans Day cards in the gift shop. They said "go to Walgreens."

Finally found one today at Hallmark . I almost did what my husband said to do, "buy two or three of them at least, so you don't have to hunt them down every year." But there was only one suitable one. There was a Vietnam-War-specific card, and it actually referenced the fact that the Vietnam War was controversial for many years. Who wants to send that to a Vietnam War vet? THEY KNOW. Anyway, I thought writing this might help get this off my chest. I still can't believe the Veterans Museum doesn't have Veterans Day cards.

If you know a vet, acknowledge him or her Sunday, Nov. 11.

ETA: Go look at Hallmark's website. Go look. Not a mention of Veterans Day on the home page. What the heck, people?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow.

I'm so sorry it was difficult to find a card for such a tremendous day for our Vets... ummm... especially WITH what's going on currently in our world?!
Ding ding ding!!! Anyone thinking? I can understand your frustration.
Thank goodness there's a card for EVERYTHING ELSE out there!

Wow.

It's really sad and am ashamed to admit I forgot myself... It will be interesting to see what I'm able to find in the stores here. Thank you for the reminder.

I'm happy you found a card for your Dad, he's lucky to have you. ;)

Anonymous said...

I am sorry you had this roblem. It seems as if even our government doesn't want to acknowledge our vets and how proud of them we should be.

Angie said...

Thank you for a great post. My uncle is a Viet Nam vet and my brother is a veteran as was my Dad and at least one of my cousins.

I can't believe I never thought to send them a card. What the heck....Sweetest Day cards are all over the place at that time and that is a made-up day and you can't find any Veteran's Day cards. Argh!

Thank you, Jen.

Katie said...

This is very frustrating. I actually wondered the other day why I hadn't really seen any mention of Veteran's Day anywhere. I can't explain it, but maybe, hopefully it is just inadvertent.

Melissa @ Banana Migraine said...

That is a terrible thing! My grandfather and I were just talking about the same thing a few weeks ago.

I'm glad you were able to find a card in the end.

Bertha said...

Wow, so they have cards for relatively meaningless holidays (secretary's day? Come on!) but nothing for Veteran's day?? Also, why the hell would you write about how the war was controversial on a CARD for the VETERAN who was THERE?! The hell? I don't have any veterans in my family, so I will think about your father on Sunday.

goodkarma said...

Ugh. My dad is a Vietnam vet, too. I've never really done anything about Veterans Day, though. He doesn't talk about it and I thought he liked it that way... but we should be able to acknowledge and thank the vets who do want to talk about it and be honored. I can't believe you had such a hard time finding a card. xo

Anonymous said...

I used to work at a Hallmark for a few years. I don't think I ever got a request for a Veteran's card but I know we had some. You're right - they do deserve a card at the very least. I know that you can create your own card. Anyways, thanks for pointing this out!

Sonya said...

NOT stupid at all. They have a card for everything else under the sun, so why not a card for Verteran's.