letter to the editor

Mom was the scribe in the family. If anyone was going to write a letter I'd have expected her to. However, on a recent trip back to the family home. I discovered that my dad wrote a letter to the editor of the Nashville News (probably) in the late '80s. It was published with the headline "Ordinary men were greatest WWII heroes."

For Independence Day, I am reproducing his letter to the editor here.

Dear Editor:
I am enclosing a copy of an article from a book entitled World War II Fighting Men of Arkansas published shortly after the end of the war. The man pictured was my father Brooks Ayers Tolleson. He was born north of Nashville at Mount Pleasant and was raised in the Highland/Nathan/Center Point area.
The approach of Veterans Day prompts me to highlight his contribution to that war along with those of many others from this area.
Brooks married Katherine Wood and had three children before being drafted into WWII from Pike County and another child after returning home.
Just at the end of the war, he was captured and held as a POW in a German Stalag for over six months. Even after suffering as a prisoner, he never held an anomosity toward anyone.
He was always proud of his country; he never failed to vote. He was proud to have been part of the process of freedom and protection this country offered, and he honored the flag and other veterans every chance he had.
Brooks lived most of his adult life in Clark County working in the logging industry. After suffering an initial hear attack in 1975, he and Katherine returned to Howard County in the early 1980s.
He applied for and began receiving veteran benefits of only $16 a month. I thought this was a disgrace because much of his disability was the direct result of his injury while a POW, but my dad received it gladly.
My dad was the most honest person I've ever known, and he was only one of many of his generation who did what they believed to be right. Ordinary men like him were truly the greatest heroes of the war. America needs more heroes like him today.
Sincerely,
Ronnie Tolleson
Mineral Springs

Mom has the original handwritten letter as well as an original clipping somewhere. We'll try to preserve them. I can't locate the book the letter references, but will try to at some point.

Raise your flag this week. Honor a veteran this Independence Day. Vote this fall. The price that my grandfather and many others paid make the examples that they lived worthy of following.