Veteran’s Day: 250 Years of Service
What distinguishes a poem or prose? Why do fine poems, rhyming or free verse, stand out in memory a little more than paragraphs with perfect structure? Perhaps it is the author’s meticulous attention to words that can create vivid imagery.
On November 11, 2025, I heard a remarkable free verse poem. The Pierre Claeyssens Veterans Foundation, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 1649, along with other fine organizations sponsored at Santa Barbara Cemetery, the remembrance of our Veterans. The view from the top of the grassy knoll was lovely. The ocean was behind us, and the rippling American flag was framed in front of us by the beautiful costal mountains.
The poem was authored and read to the audience by Santa Barbara’s own, retired Brigadier General Frederick Lopez and his grandson, Mr. Ryan Marsh. As the keynote speaker, General Lopez with his grandson, read his poignant poem that commemorated the past 250 years of military service, and the sacrifices made by Veterans in various conflicts.
General Lopez graciously permitted me to publish his poem in this narrative. When we discussed the poem, he mentioned that he was named after his father’s best friend, Army Second Lieutenant, Frederick P. Lopez, who was killed in action April 26, 1945. Lieutenant Lopez was serving with the 1258th Engineer Combat Battalion during the Second World War in Germany. In April the unit was actively engaged in support for the 94th Infantry Division as the division advanced from the Rhineland toward central Germany. The record shows the battalion suffered soldier losses during this period, among them was Lieutenant Frederick P. Lopez of Santa Barbara.
The Poem
I am a Veteran of the armed forces of the United States of America. I chose to serve the past 250 years on active duty, in the reserve and guard, in the continental army, marines, and navy, when millions of Americans could not, or would not. I have served in every clime and place; at home and on foreign soil; from the depths of the deepest ocean, into space and everywhere in between. I have served on the battlefields of Lexington, Bunker Hill, Yorktown, Antietam, Gettysburg, Harper’s Ferry; in the steamy jungles of Guadalcanal, Vietnam and the Philippines; on the frozen ground of Norway, Bastogne, Korea; in the sweltering desert climates of Iraq, Tunisia, 29 Palms; in the mountains of Afghanistan and Italy, in the rarified air at 30,000 feet over Germany, Japan, Korea, Iraq; along our vast maritime coastline; on or under the biggest oceans and the smallest seas. I have kept a vigilant 24 hour watch in the missile silos of Montana, and Vandenberg; on the wind swept and often freezing flight lines in South Dakota, Alaska and Texas; at the early warning radar sites in Greenland, Great Britain, Alaska, Cape Cod.
I have served during time of war and in between wars. I have served with some of the finest men and women I have ever known; their patriotism, bravery, and sacrifice humbles me when in their presence. I proudly wear medals and ribbons on my uniform, jacket or hat – outward symbols of my service and bravery. I wear inwardly on my heart the deep scars of the memory of my fallen comrades, unspeakable horrors I have experienced, all the special times I missed with my family. I have physical signs of my service: a prosthetic or missing limb, a disfiguring scar, a wheelchair that is the rest of my life, a certain look in the eye as PTSD invades my nights and my soul.
I am the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang, South Vietnam. I am the POW who went away one person and came back another or didn’t come back at all. I am the anonymous heroes in the tomb of the unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery forever preserves the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them, on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep. (Note: This paragraph attributed to Father Dennis Edward O’Brien)
I serve at the pleasure of our civilian leadership and our country’s citizens. At times they have broken faith with me, but I have always kept faith in our country and what it stands for. The American military Veteran will never receive the Nobel Peace Prize; however, has anyone, anywhere done more to restore peace and freedom, keep the peace, keep our country and the world safe from those who would do us harm? The Veteran didn’t sit at a table or stand at a podium and pontificate about peace in the world, they followed it through with actions …. at great sacrifice!
I am an American Veteran! I stood on the parade deck, raised my right hand, and swore an oath, not to a person, political party, religion, but to support and defend the Constitution of the United states of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I apologize to no person, country, or network of nations for what I have done! I stand for freedom! I live in the land of the free and the home of the brave! If called upon again I will defend my country, it’s ideals and it’s way of life until I can no longer stand and fight! To those who would do us harm, don’t forget it!
***
Thank you, Brigadier General Frederick Lopez. We salute you!
Barbara Evans Kinnear
Photograph of retired BGen Frederick R. Lopez, his grandson Ryan, and the General’s wife, Anne.
Further Articles
Barbara (“Bobbie”) Evans Kinnear, daughter of Colonel Richard Ernest Evans, joins historian and author, James Holland, on his podcast, “We Have Ways of Making You Talk”