JIM HIRONIMUS

White Hall

Veterans all across the nation and even in other countries like Australia and New Zealand wear baseball type hats to honor their service from the wars they fought in, the branches they served in or even the ships they served on.

I saw this while vacationing overseas. I even spoke with some Vietnam War Veterans from Australia while visiting there.

We have Vietnam veteran hats, Vietnam era hats, and even Vietnam combat veterans hats. We have blue and brown water Navy hats.

Anyone can put on any hat and get recognized as being a veteran just by buying a hat and wearing it??

The problem of people that aren’t veterans or people wearing a hat and wanting the honors that go with the service that is named on the hat, but never served on duty that the hat proclaims, has caused many military surplus stores to ask for DD-214’s and proof of service before they sell them.

We saw this first hand in New England last month at the stores we visited.

The owners told us there were too many “fake” veterans and they didn’t want to tarnish the real veterans who earned the right to wear the hats by letting someone who didn’t earn the right to wear the hats buy them from their stores.

If stores care this much about the honor of veterans, why doesn’t Miles Township care the same way by taking the time to make their veterans monument correct and honor Vietnam veterans correctly? What is their excuse? They have a local historian to oversee this and that person should ensure their veterans’ monument is historically accurate.