Jim Page has experienced melancholy this time of year for more than 40 years, even though one of his favorite holidays is just days away.
He is the Independence 4th District City Council member. He is the mayor pro tem. These might be temporary positions in the 62-year-old man’s life.
He is a U.S. Army Vietnam War veteran forever.
“When Vietnam started, it was my job,” said Page, who went to Vietnam in February 1968 as a Special Forces A-Team executive officer. “I enlisted at the age of 18 and joined the Army.”
Page served in Vietnam for six months and was wounded twice.
Along with John Pinch, deputy city manager, Page will speak on behalf of the city at the Veterans Day tribute at 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, at the Truman Memorial Building, 416 W. Maple Ave.
Col. Patrick J. McCarthy, who is assigned as the Commander of the Marine Corps Mobilization Command in Kansas City, will serve as the event’s keynote speaker. The Marine Corps Mobilization Command Color Guard from Kansas City will present the colors.
A visit to the Veterans Hall and the Veterans video project, both in the Truman Memorial Building’s lower level, also will take place. The event is open to the public.
“Veterans Day and the Fourth of July are my two favorite holidays,” Page said. “In today’s military, we have young ladies now serving in very hazardous conditions right along with the guys in a lot of cases that we didn’t have when I went in. The thing is, we are a brotherhood-sisterhood. We are all related by experience, by love of country, by loss of friends, so Veterans Day is a very poignant, melancholy time for me.”
Page said he encourages residents to attend Tuesday’s event to meet the men and women who were willing to risk everything for their country.
“If people are curious to see veterans and talk to veterans, they’ll see that we’re no different than anybody else,” Page said. “We just chose and felt that it was our obligation to serve this country – plain and simple.”
Four decades later, knowing what he knows about “the political mishandling of Vietnam,” Page said he’d do it all over again.
“I’d be in Afghanistan tomorrow, if they’d let me,” he said. “My country is in a bind.”
