Wednesday, November 11, 2009

In Honor of Veteran's Day

Veterans Day is an annual American holiday honoring military veterans. In the words of President Obama, "We don't mark this day each year as a celebration of victory. We mark this day as a celebration of those who made victory possible.

Seeing a lot of coverage in the media about the holiday made me think back to some of my favorite storylines involving veterans on soaps. There was John (Garrison) Hudson on ANOTHER WORLD (played by David Forsyth) who didn't return from Vietnam to his family until many years later. I also enjoyed the story of Mike Donovan on LOVING (James Kiberd), who was another emotionally scarred Vietnam vet.

But there have been many other stories of veterans as well. A year before I was born Tom Hughes from AS THE WORLD TURNS went to Vietnam after some troubled teen years. Eventually he became a respectable member of the Oakdale community. Many years later we would find out he had a daughter, Lien, during that time. Jack Abbott on Y&R is also a Vietnam vet but we never saw any of that onscreen. That story was created later to facilitate Jack having a son from that time, Keemo. Philip Kiriakis on DAYS was a marine and lost a leg.

What have been your favorite soap stories about veterans or the military?

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