My family have been residents of Auburn since 1943. I watched my first veterans parade sometime in the late ’40s, perched on my father’s shoulders. Even then it brought a lump to my throat to see the uniformed men from both World Wars march down Main Street with the flags waving and bands playing.

I am now a Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, yet the same thing happens, all these years later, as I stand, sometimes in the same place, watching the parade, often with a grandchild on my shoulders.

I have been pleased with the effort this city has consistently made to honor veterans of all the conflicts in which our nation has been involved. I was especially pleased this year to see that the list of scheduled events included firsthand accounts from survivors of two separate, significant episodes from the Second World War – the Doolittle Raid and the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. I awaited both with great anticipation.

I attended the Tuesday evening presentation by Ed Saylor, a participant in the Doolittle Raid, and came away so grateful for having had the privilege of hearing the personal story of this valiant and humble veteran. Saturday evening I returned to the Auburn Avenue Theater with a full expectation of having a similar experience from hearing John Woolston, a survivor of the Indianapolis sinking. In this I was sadly disappointed.

As that program began, a woman, who neither introduced herself nor the organization she represented, stood and took the microphone. I expected that she would follow the same format Mr. Fioretti had used at the Tuesday presentation by giving us some preliminary information, then introducing the guest of honor and allowing him to tell his story. To my dismay, she instead began relating the story of the Indianapolis herself.

I supposed that she would simply give a cursory summarization and then defer to Mr. Woolston, the man whom we had all come to hear. Instead she continued, in great detail, even using a carefully arranged slide presentation, to give her own full, secondhand, and I’m sorry to say, second-rate version of the story … when it was not hers to give.

Equally disturbing was the fact that her deportment through it all was as though she, and not him, was the celebrity of the evening.

After 45 minutes of listening to her, and with her showing no sign of tiring, I could endure it no longer. I got up and left. My disappointment mounted with each step as I walked back to my car for I knew that at some point she would probably relent and allow Mr. Woolston, who had been rescued from the jaws of sharks, to step forward and rescue the audience from her.

In this I certainly came away the loser, for to hear the story, and look into the face of a veteran as he tells it is an experience to be treasured. On that night I did not get that experience. This woman, by inserting herself into the program, robbed us of the benefit of hearing the personal account exclusively from the man who had lived it.

As good as it may have been, it was nevertheless to be unnecessarily tainted by a woman who lacked the grace to honor a true veteran by allowing the evening to be his and his alone.

Shame on her. And shame on whatever organization sponsored that program if such insensitivity and poor taste is allowed to continue.

– John Holliday