News anchor Tom Brokaw has indelibly stamped the name "Greatest Generation" on our parents and teachers.  Many of them served in the military or worked in industry supporting the war efforts.  Several of our teachers served overseas even if they never spoke of it. 

Memorial Day to them had meaning we as kids could not fathom.  When we were very young, we followed the parade to the various memorials where the high point was not the names of the dead or anything said about them but the firing of the rifles and our scramble for the brass shell casings. 

For many veterans their way of remembering was to join other veterans in The American Legion.  I won the American Legion's trip to Boys State but even then I did not understand why they sponsored this practice exercise in American government.  Years later as I reflected on the Legion Members I knew, I began to realize that for them it was more than a social club, more than a way to share experience. 

Whether they signed up as young men looking for excitement or dedicated to service, most came out with the feeling that they had fought for an exceptional cause.  The Legion became their way of continuing their service.  I understood why my Uncle Bill Pickering, a sailor in WWI and WWII, remained active in the Legion for 70 years. 

One of Bill Pickering's good friends was Pat Cavanaugh's father Tom who was the only veteran to serve three or four terms as commander of the local post.  Pat recalls the photos of her father and Bill Pickering and others leaning happily on their shovels as they pitched in to build the first Legion building near the old Brickyard. 

In Bill Pickering's papers when he died at age 94, his neice Eleanor Buck Millwater, found this photo that he kept of Pat Cavanaugh.