Life Experience

The cliche of going to work at a retirement home is that some old war veteran will pull you aside and ramble on about his days in the service. While I actually did meet some war veterans, when I asked about their experiences, all of them had a similar "I'd rather not talk about it." This had kept me up sometimes thinking about why not. Pop culture glorifies violence through movies and video games, but the actual experience of war and killing is very real and tragic. Growing up in a day and age where walking into school and talking about how many kills you got in Call of Duty is the norm, we cannot even begin to think that this was something that actually happened. But these men didn't play it on an Xbox. They were the ones that were actually there. They were the ones who lost their friends and they know that the haunting experience's they have faced is nothing anyone should be proud of.

One of my favorite parts about working at Harmony Hall was the sheer amount of experience the resident's were willing to share. Being a fan of stories, I often found myself wrapped up in their life during the depression or where they were on December 7th 1941. Whether or not the story they were telling me was the truth or just some delirious, made up story, I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. One of the reasons that we study history today is to learn about cultures and mistakes made in a different time. But there is only so much in text books that we can learn from and having the chance to sit down and learn from the vast knowledge of these people who need help tying their shoelaces, was awe inspiring and a very humbling experience.