Lloyd Queery gave the question some thought before answering.
The question: How can Iowans turn the phrase “support our veterans” into action?
“Show ’em some respect, especially those people that went to Vietnam because they didn’t get much when they got out of the service,” the 81-year-old Army veteran from West Des Moines who served in Germany and Paris but not in battle said.
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Showing respect was a common theme when IowaWatch took a day in August 2017 to ask several veterans that question. The simple question has taken on significance as World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans age and new veterans return from war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Answers varied.
“When people say, like, support the veterans and, what can they do, sometimes I’m not so sure, like, how to respond,” Rachel Brown, 33, and a Navy veteran from Waukee, Iowa, told IowaWatch. “Because, just by being in the service, maybe it’s, like, made me more independent. And I don’t want to feel like I’m dependent.” Brown served in 2006 to 2012 in the western Pacific Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
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Other veterans IowaWatch talked had even more views. Those views, especially from Vietnam Era veterans, are in this IowaWatch Connection podcast that originally aired as an IowaWatch Connection radio program.
Jeff Stein hosted an produced the program.
