When Duty Calls

Sitting in a place of honor at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace on Sunday as veterans observed Armed Forces Day, U.S. Army Sgt. Andrew Ramirez was a silent reminder of the hazards faced by people in the military.

The ceremony, organized by Vietnam Veterans of America and the Nixon Library, attracted about 100 people, many of them veterans. Others just wanted to see the soldier, one of three Americans captured by the Serbian military in March, and welcome him home.

Ramirez did not speak during the ceremony and declined to talk to reporters afterward. But his mother, Vivian Ramirez, said he came to Orange County to show his appreciation for the support he received during his 32 days of captivity, most of them in Belgrade.

“It’s his way of showing that he’s one of them,” she said. Vivian Ramirez had been invited to the ceremony while her son was still captive, and said she felt lucky not to be present as the mother of a prisoner of war.

Others at the ceremony were not so fortunate. With speeches and tears they recalled sons and brothers missing in Vietnam since the mid-1960s. “My brother would be 58 years old now,” said Judie Mills Tabor, Western Regional Coordinator for the National League of POW families. Her brother James B. Mills has been missing in action for 32 years.

Most of the morning, however, was devoted to remembering not the missing nor the dead, but to honoring those in the armed services who put themselves in harm’s way as a part of their daily lives.

Veterans and active members of the service lamented the reduced size of the military even while its members are increasingly deployed on missions around the globe.

More than 50% of the U.S. Army is composed of reserve and National Guard members, they said. It hardly resembles the force many of the veterans present were drafted to join in their youth.

“We ask them to drop their jobs and go serve us overseas in sometimes very difficult circumstances, and the enemy today is not as clear as it was in World War I and World War II--the missions are not as clear,” said Army Maj. General John L. Scott.

But much remains the same.

Brian Ward, a former POW, told the audience that when he saw Ramirez and two other captured servicemen on television it instantly called to mind his own imprisonment in North Vietnam.

The cuts and bruises on their faces reminded Ward of the wounds he received ejecting from his plane after it had been shot down.

Today he keeps in mind that the ultimate goal of military service is the achievement of peace.

“This won’t happen in my lifetime or my children’s or my grandchildren’s or my great-grandchildren’s. But just as a ripple in the ocean later turns into a wave, this dream will be a reality.”