A fading, sepia-tinged photograph of a man in an army uniform taken on his wedding day. A square face, not movie star handsome but pleasant to look at, high forehead, hair slicked back in the fashion of the day – a face wreathed in smiles and speaking Gaelic so Irish he looked. The pretty woman in the wedding dress, a flash of impossibly white teeth and shockingly jet black hair holding a bouquet of flowers in large, graceful hands. On her head, a veil worn by her grandmother whose husband was a postmaster in a tiny frontier town in South Dakota. Prairie stock, she. A clear sense of strength from both.

They had to be strong. They had both just navigated safely through the danger shoals of history and tragedy. A depression, a war, world shattering cataclysms that changed the politics and culture of the United States forever. The year 1945 was a year of national triumph. It was also a year of personal fulfillment as millions of ordinary Americans who had put on a uniform and become “citizen soldiers” in order to smash the ideologies of fascism and militarism unshouldered their patriotic burdens and were trying to get on with their interrupted lives.

It’s hard to tell from the picture if the sun was shining. But a special light shone from both their eyes. Clearly, they were in love, the kind of love that so many young lovers aspire to but rarely achieve – a deep, abiding commitment based on mutual respect and caring. And over the next 36 years they would share in the joys, the worries, the sorrows, and the mysteries of raising 10 children to adulthood, a remarkable achievement given that the odds said that their grandparents would not have been so fortunate. Infant mortality and a world without anti-biotics or vaccines against childhood killers like diphtheria or pertussis would have almost certainly taken one or two offspring 100 years ago.

This weekend those ten and their spouses are gathering to dedicate a recently purchased headstone that will forever mark where the mortal remains of Joseph T. Moran and Margaret L. Moran now lie a’rest in peace, their journey ended, the race won. They are coming from all over America; from both coasts, from the east and west, from north and south.

They are coming home.

In 1945, the GI’s who had rolled up the Nazi war machine and defeated the mad ambitions of the Japanese militarists were coming home to a different America than the one they had left just a few short years earlier. This was an America that even more so than today, stood astride the world like a colossus, unchallenged in military might and economic power. And it was a nation that in less than 4 years would, for the first time in the history of civilized man, voluntarily give up those military advantages in order to build something far more permanent and vital; a peaceful world safe for the children that the returning veterans were having in record numbers.

Joe and Margie Lou participated in the post war baby-boom with enthusiasm, having six children in the decade following the surrender of the Japanese aboard the USS Missouri (four more before the Kennedy assassination). Most of the men in our suburban Chicago neighborhood were also veterans and took part with eagerness in the business of baby-making. On our block alone there were families with 4, 6, 7, 9, and 11 children not counting the several “regular” families with only 2 or 3 kids. Summer days were filled with the sounds of squealing, laughing children, a cacophony of growing up noises, of jumping rope and ballgames and the endless babble of little girls and boys engaging in the mysterious, exciting process of becoming people.

It was amazing how lightly these conquerers of Europe and Asia wore their military experience, almost as if their time spent flying airplanes, driving tanks, or slogging through the jungles of Asia or the hedgerows in bocage country in France was a twice told tale, a happenstance of history that barely scraped the surface of their lives. One almost got the impression that these killers of Nazis and Japanese fanatics had to have been someone else, not these mild mannered suburban dads who quietly and without much fuss went about the business of building an America that their children would be happy in.

Joe made his living in the army jumping out of airplanes, an incongruity when one looks at pictures of him later in life and compare it to that picture taken on his wedding day. He was known as “Jumpin’ Joe” at the large corporation where he spent 35 years working to support his large family. And while he never spoke about his military experiences (to this day, I have no idea if he ever fired a shot in anger) the air of authority he exuded was noticed by all. Neighborhood children, while not fearful, were automatically on their best behavior around him – almost as if his presence demanded their attention and respect. When he walked into a roomful of playmates, a hush would descend on the group, a silent tribute to his confident bearing and what the French call a roulement de commande – a commanding presence.

It was this presence that probably represents the greatest gift the military gave him. Millions of young men who grew up in the depression had learned self-reliance. But it was the army that gave the farmer’s son from Minnesota or the mechanics boy from New York city the opportunity to command hundreds, sometimes thousands of men in life and death circumstances. Compared to the Philippines where he had been sent to fight, Joe must have thought being a corporate manager was a piece of cake.

It is also more than likely that the military instilled in him a sense of duty and honor above and beyond what his Irish parents and the Roman Catholic faith had taught him. The duty he had to his family was proven when, despite being accepted at one of the most prestigious writing schools in the country – the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University – he gave up a career in writing to get a job in the corporate world to support his growing family. Sacrifice is the essence of service whether it be to the army, to the country, or to one’s own family and both Joe and Margie Lou would sacrifice much in order to give their children a life free from want or cares.

But this Veterans Day as all ten of Joe and Margie Lou’s creations gather to remember them and laughingly reminisce about growing up in such a large, loud, and wickedly sharp family, I find my thoughts turning to honor. What makes a person honorable?

Surely it is devotion to those you love. And fealty to a set of principals that one follows even at the cost to one’s own comfort and ease. But it must also be the act of taking part selflessly in something larger than oneself, something bigger than the tiny corner of the world most of us inhabit.

I never served in the military. In my youth, such notions were considered “uncool.” Joe and Margie Lou, old fashioned liberals that they were, opposed the Viet Nam war and spent a good number of years worrying about the possibility that one of their precious creations would be drafted to serve in a conflict that both saw as a civil war and an immoral commitment by the United States to prop up a ruthless dictator. But during all those years when they were sweating out changes in the draft laws and the potential yanking of deferments for college students, I never once heard my father speak with bitterness about the military. He railed quite a bit against the stupidity of officers and the waste of men and material he had witnessed, but he never said a word to me that would have led me to believe that he thought the military was an evil institution.

Was it because deep down he knew what military service had done for him? How it had molded him to be a better man after he got out then when he went in? I like to think so. Having so many military friends while living in Washington, D.C. many years ago, I was struck by their sense of honor and duty toward the country and each other. Not that they made a point of wearing these virtues on their sleeves, but rather it was manifested in the way they approached life, as if everything they did mattered and had a purpose. This was Joe Moran. Whether he was showing me how to throw a curveball or teaching me how one goes about making an important, life altering decision (“Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper and then list the pros on one side and the cons on the other….”), he always seemed to be in charge of his life. Did military service help him discover this kind of inner strength? Again, I like to think so.

This is the kind of strength drawn from honor that makes a difference in the lives of others. And for that, remembering our service men and women for only one day out of the year seems inadequate. For all that they have given us, for not only their sacrifices in battle but the sacrifices made for their families and communities, that special kind of honorable person who has participated in a life outside of their own limited universe should be remembered every day – as my father is remembered by all ten of his legacies.

As we all gather tomorrow, the memories will elicit more than a few tears I’m sure. But it is not for what we have lost that sadness will thicken our view and tighten our throats; it is what we have gained by having an honorable man as a father who taught us all that sharing and sacrifice is something noble to which one should always aspire. So we will share the day and miss both Joe and Margie Lou terribly, taking comfort as always in each others presence.

That is the greatest gift any parent can leave for their children. For at bottom, honor is the recognition that love for others supersedes love of self. And for the Morans, this essential truth will, as always, prove that time and distance are meaningless when memories of dinner tables and lakeshore bonfires, teasing, roughhousing, and quiet rooms, quiet times, and most of all, of a man and a woman in love with each other and their large, boisterous brood are called forth and laid out like a picnic lunch for all to feast upon.