Some day, I’ll meet a World War II veterans who’s boring. Today was not that day.

Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth hosted 400 veterans for a “Roll Call” luncheon. These were folks who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first Gulf War, Vietnam, Korea and World War Two.

In that picture, the commanding officer of the base has delivered a saber to a 103 year old veteran to cut the cake.

Don Graves, who was at Iwo Jima and turns 98 next month, also helped warm up the crowd.

“Anyone here love… America?!” used to be a line that would get people riled up anywhere. Now, some of the veterans are concerned Kids Today would rather hold a protest without understand they’re lucky enough to have the ability to protest.

Some talked about how they would have preferred not winding up in combat, but they’re glad for the skills they learned in the military.

Loyal Scaiacholics will recall my fascination with interviewing World War II veterans. They always have something interesting to say, but they never think they have something interesting to say. Today, we heard from Bill Parker, 99. He had come down from Tulsa and didn’t understand why an airplane hangar full of people were looking forward to hearing from him.

He was in the first wave to storm Omaha Beach on DDay. During World War II, his service earned him two Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star. It’s still hard for him to talk about losing so many friends, so #ScaiaBlog looks at the more lighthearted side of … a world war.

Like the time Parker thought he shot Hitler right in his head.

He met Dwight Eisenhower.

And you know how frustrating it is when you think of the perfect thing to say right after an encounter with someone? That happened to Parker after Eisenhower told him, “If you need anything, let me know.” He said Eisenhower offered his boots, so he now wishes he had just asked to get out of Europe [a soldier asks].

He did finally get back to Europe, where he apologized to the mayor of Villon, France for shooting out a bunch of windows at a church.

The mayor was okay with it. And he makes a strong point at the end of that clip: If they hadn’t fought that war, we might not have the freedom now to argue about pronouns. If we did still have that freedom, the pronouns would probably be “er” and “sie,” which sounds just awful.