Remembering those who gave all

By Jennifer McBride - Leader Staff

Doctors say Paul Borchers may not see live to see another Veterans Day. While the Korean War-era soldier's body may be fighting colon cancer, his bright smile gives hope that he could defy the numbers.

"They gave me six to 24 months to live," Borchers said cheerfully. "I feel like a guy on death row with a six-month pass."

Borchers doesn't see much reason to agonize over his condition.

"You just make the best of every minute," he said, still smiling. "Do the best you can."

Part of doing the best he can is remembering fallen comrades on Veterans Day. The holiday carries a special meaning for people, like Borchers, who lost friends in combat.

"[Korea] may have been a 'police action,' but the bullets killed just the same," he said.

The Pablo serviceman's battles no longer involve bullets, but fliers. Every Tuesday, Borchers makes copies of the upcoming American Red Cross blood drive schedule and distributes them. Borchers said he wants to help the blood bank, which saved his life last March by pumping him full of 16 pints of blood.

"It was like getting the fluids changed in my car," he said.

Borchers also encourages people to get regular colonoscopies. If more Americans were willing to undergo screening, he said, thousands of lives would be saved every year. Ever since his diagnosis, Borchers has made the war on ignorance his personal crusade.

"God and eight surgeons didn't save my life for nothing," he said.

Borchers was one of over a hundred people crowded into the Polson VFW Hall on Monday, where veterans and their families gathered for dinner. Members of the VFW organizational leadership dedicated the night to the lost, reading out the names of Montana soldiers who went missing in action or disappeared in prisoner of war camps during past wars. Monica Mills, President of the VFW's auxiliary, laid out empty place settings on an empty table, symbolizing the painful loss of the people who had vanished.

"They must remain alive in our hearts until they return home or are taken into the blossom of their Heavenly Father," said Cecil Baker, who spoke while Mills laid out the table.

The ceremony had emotional resonance for Russ King, a Navy serviceman who now lives in St. Ignatius. King was with the fleet of ships off Cuba's shore during the Bay of Pigs and read the names of Montanans who had gone MIA during Vietnam.

"It's a brotherhood," King said of military service. "Sometimes it's hard for me to hold back my tears because I lost so many friends and brothers."

King serves in the Honor Guard and attends every military funeral he can.

"It's hard to hold a rifle or give a 21-gun salute when it's someone I knew in the coffin," he said.

King said Veterans Day is important to him and other Vietnam-era veterans who didn't receive the warmest welcome after they returned home from an unpopular war.

"We didn't get recognition," he said.

Veterans Day was first commemorated in 1919 by President Woodrow Wilson. Though W.W.I officially ended with the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, an armistice effectively stopped combat seven months earlier on November 11th, 1918. After W.W.II, President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the name of Armistice Day to Veterans Day to recognize the contributions of U.S. servicemen (and now women) who fought in all wars.

The red, paper poppies decorating each table in the VFW Hall on Monday evoked Veterans Day's historical roots. The VFW has been selling "buddy poppies" to raise money for veterans and their dependents for the past 75 years. Red poppies became the symbol of all the fallen in W.W.I after Lt. Colonel John McCrae wrote a poem about the men buried at Flanders fields, which were part of the front line in Europe.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row/…We are the Dead. Short days ago/We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow/Loved and were loved, and now we lie/in Flanders fields…"

The Veterans Day dinner was one of numerous events in the valley celebrating veterans over the weekend. Borchers, a member of three different veterans' organizations, said he was happy to see all the activities.

"I couldn't even be in all the places that had something going on," Borchers said. "It's wonderful to see all the people coming out."

Veterans Day, he thinks, is a way of preserving history, especially for young people who might not have the historical perspective that those who served in combat do.

"There's more to school than music and cell phones," Borchers said.