SUNDAY PINNING CEREMONY AT THE HOSPICE
Posted: November 8, 2026 Filed under: Appreciation, Veterans Leave a commentJanet Wertz wrote this pandemic remembrance.
One Sunday, as I manned the reception desk at the hospice, I could hear the familiar words to an old hymn floating down the hall, just a bit off-key. “Rock of Ages, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee!” I knew the sound came from the room of an Air Force veteran being honored with a pinning ceremony. With a limit of just two visitors in his room per day, most of his family watched from the patio outside, joining in as best they could.
The hymn was one I remembered my dad’s mother singing in her church. Her singing was also a bit off-key, but carried the depth of her devotion nonetheless. I heard that same strength and devotion coming down the hall. The singing of Rock of Ages meant the ceremony was coming to an end. The vet had received his pin with the US and Air Force flags on it, now pinned to his bedclothes. He also received a small wooden stand for the occasion.
Their mission complete, the pinners, veterans themselves, came into the reception area and sat down. The two were well into their retirement years, old enough to know they would one day be the person being pinned. But not today. Today it was for someone else. Someone who knew he wasn’t forgotten.
A few minutes later, the gospel singer came with his guitar, music stand, and the wheeled chair he used to transport them. He comes and sings with the residents, one at a time, every Sunday. He likes having company to sing along with him, but COVID rules severely limited that. At least that time, we weren’t in total lockdown.
Later, when the veteran’s family left, they blamed the absolute lockdown, no visitors at all, in another care facility for causing the abrupt decline that sent their relative into hospice. They expressed appreciation for the ceremony. It was as if a burden had been lifted from them. The man felt respected and honored by those who’d also served.
The family signed out, listing their departure time on the Visitor Roll. As they headed for home, so did the men who performed the ceremony. Honor had been served.
The Turning Edge: Starting Something New
Posted: September 13, 2026 Filed under: MAMF Media Podcasts, museum news and stories Leave a commenthttps://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-mcn3z-1b47253
The Turning Edge logo explained
In Zen art, the enso, or minimalist circle, is drawn with a single or double brushstroke representing enlightenment, strength, elegance, and the void. The open center honors what’s left unsaid and creates space for dialogue, healing, and understanding.
In storytelling, a “turning-edge” plot twist is a moment that shifts the reader’s perspective, making them rethink past events and revise their prior understanding. It can be symbolic, like a storm subsiding or doors bursting open. It can also be an identity change, when someone realizes they are not just one role, like hero, soldier, or victim. A turning edge can also reveal that people who seem like strangers actually have a deep connection.
The Turning Edge stands for what we do. The Turning Edge gives those conversations a continuing public platform. Through storytelling, we look at ourselves and our situations in new ways; silence turns into conversations that foster greater understanding, compassion, movement forward, and hope.
To contact Anita and for more information about Battlefield: Home, click here.
To contact the museum, email: info@militaryfamilymuseum.org.
The museum’s podcasts are supported, in part by Moose Lodge 1680, Belen New Mexico, American Legion Post 117, Clovis NM, the New Mexico Humanities Council, New Mexico Law Tigers, and Nusenda Credit Union. Nusenda has 34 branches throughout New Mexico and West Texas.
A VERY SPECIAL PERSON
Posted: August 30, 2026 Filed under: Appreciation, Healing, Military Family Museum, Service, Veterans | Tags: MAMF, Veterans, volunteering Leave a commentby Janet Wertz
I have a belief that the only things we actually own are those which are not for sale. They are the time each of us is allotted to live on Earth, what we use that time for, and what we do for others. None of us knows how long each of us will live. Some people have only a short time, yet pack a huge life into that brief stay. Others live long lives; some content to let it evaporate day by day, while others really live each and every day, no matter how many of those days they will or won’t have. Others take their joy from helping others, both giving and receiving joy.
Military people are special. Each has agreed to give an amount of time to the defense of the nation, and not just for themselves. Titles of books and movies illustrate this life choice. Band of Brothers. For some, even after their days of active duty are over, still choose to spend some of their time in that society of military people.
Some, whose active duty days are done, choose to volunteer to spent time with others of that brethren society. One such was recently laid to rest. He’d earned that rest. Long retired, he volunteered his time visiting veterans in physical rehab and hospice facilities. My father was his first veteran. Dad had reached the point where he had to be picked up, and put in bed, or on a wheeled gurney. He hated his own helplessness, and the knowledge that he would never recover his previous abilities, including just being able to stand on his own two feet. I visited him daily, but he was still trapped, helpless to help himself, bored to the point of not wanting the days remaining to him.
Then the Volunteer walked in. Like Dad, he had been an Air Force officer. Like us, he and his family had lived in England. Dad’s whole manner changed. He was completely alive and involved in conversation with this visiting fellow officer. He gave Dad something I couldn’t; a chance to be in conversation with another who had served in some of the same places, even same times as Dad, although they’d had entirely different duties. Stories were traded, smiles and laughter shared. Dad had respite from being the useless cripple he saw himself to be. A gift of shared experiences I couldn’t provide; I was his daughter, not someone on his military level. The Volunteer visited Dad once a week for the remaining nearly year and a half of his life. He made my Dad’s last days fuller, and less an unwanted burden. Now both men are gone. Maybe they’ve reunited, still swapping stories of, “There I was…”
When you look in the mirror, do you see someone who could be that Volunteer for others? Is it your turn?
