Honoring veterans

Residents of the Margaret Tietz Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center gathered on Veterans Day to honor those among them who served their country.
The roughly 40 residents and staff members came together in the nursing home’s recreation room to honor the 11 veterans, and they were joined by New York State Senator Frank Padavan, who served two years active duty in the Army and 28 years in the reserves.
“This day was created after World War I and called Armistice Day, and as conflicts continued our government decided to make it a day to honor and remember all veterans from all conflicts,” Padavan said.
The spirited group sang patriotic songs like “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “God Bless America,” and “Grand Old Flag,” while Phyllis Dumas, a Margaret Tietz resident, played the piano.
Padavan stressed the importance of remembering veterans and the sacrifices they have made for their country.
“When someone commits themselves to do this, not only do they sacrifice, but their families sacrifice as well,” Padavan said. “I’ve looked in the faces of wives, husbands, brothers and sisters of those people, so I know what it’s all about.”
Gerald Hart, the nursing home’s executive director who spent four peacetime years in the United States Marine Corps, expressed his gratitude to those who served in wartime.
“I will never say that I’ve gone through what you ladies and gentlemen have gone through in the world, and God bless you,” Hart said. “We wouldn’t be the United States that we are today without each and every one of you.”
Padavan and Hart also traded stories with some of the residents, including Daniel Palmer, who spent four years stationed in Great Britain with the 8th Air Force and had a close encounter with a B-17 bomber coming in for a landing.
“I was riding my bike across the runway to get to the communications shack, and saw it come and was just paralyzed,” Palmer said. “I just dropped flat, and as soon as I did I heard the plane roar right over me. I got back up soaked in sweat and I could barely stand.”
Palmer said his experience in the Air Force matured him from a “young fellow” into a man, and that Veterans Day is an important opportunity to remember vets, but people should reach out to them regularly.
“It’s a reminder to show more respect and more feeling and empathy for the veterans who put their lives on the line,” Palmer said. “People should go into veteran’s hospitals and volunteer to come in and see the veterans, come in and say hello, spend 15 minutes, you don’t have to stay long.”