I am not one to write a letter to the newspaper, but it is too apparent that I belong to the silent majority, I hope I am still with the majority when it comes to respecting our country and its flag. I was not watching the Thunder game from the “bubble”, but I have it on reliable reports from friends of their behavior during the national anthem. If I am wrong then I apologize for using them as an example but this has happened in other venues by other sports figures. When the announcer asks people to please stand for the National Anthem, we are remembering all veterans living and passed, who have served our country in any capacity, but especially those who were killed or returned injured and those that did not return at all from foreign battlefields.

My father served in the European theatre as a “wire hanger” stringing communication cables and wire. Caught in a mortar barrage, he wandered behind enemy lines obviously confused and dazed, and was fortunate to be in the area that the 101st was advancing into, at which time they kept him with them until he could get back to his unit. Coming home he was never the same as the man who went overseas, as attested by his brother and one of his best friends. No one knew then what a third year med student knows about PTSD and traumatic brain injuries and the damage that leaves behind.

My father-in-law had volunteered in late 1940, and was inducted in January, 1941, along with many Okarche men, who with many Oklahomans, made up large portions of the 45th Thunderbirds.

Expecting to be discharged some time in early ‘42, he served possibly the longest of any servicemen I know. When Japan attacked in December of ‘41 all discharges were canceled and he served until after VE Day in May of 1945.

During his service he mainly drove trucks hauling equipment, many times the kitchen supplies were in his truck. On one of his trips the rear wheels hit a land mine and both he and his co-driver exited the truck in a nanosecond through a hole in the roof where usually a machine gun would have been.

Had the gun been there, they both likely would have been killed. He suffered with back pain the rest of his life and lost some hearing from the explosion.

Surely these players had some family members, grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts that have served. Are they aware of the disrespect they have shown them? Surely one can find other ways to make their opinions known, as they enjoy making millions of dollars, playing a game, in a country made and kept free by our military.

Every time I stand for the National Anthem, I think of those two men and the over 20 million people that served in WWII and countless others in conflicts before and after that war. I will not let these insults to these great men and women pass without comment and a pledge that I will not watch, or read or listen to any “Thunder” news because they have disrespected my father, my father-in-law, and every other veteran that ever served under our flag.

Sincerely,

James S. Gerber M.D.