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    It was just a little white table…
    but it needed words of gratitude, like Mama’s Thanksgiving meal, so before Uncle John arrived for dinner, Gretchen and Samantha and I decided to put three gifts of our own on the table to honor our veterans.
    Gretchen colored pictures of all the objects on the table, and Samantha wrote out the words of “My Country ’Tis of Thee” as a tribute in song.
    But I didn’t know what I—a ten-year-old-girl—could ever put on the table that was as important as each veteran’s gift of freedom to me.

    It was just a little white table…
    but I looked at it all dinner long, and in the quiet inside me I could almost hear the silent soldiers of the empty chair saying:
    Remember us, please...we are real people like your Uncle John and Mike who left families and friends, homes and dreams of our own to protect your birthright of liberty from disappearing as easily as sunlight from a glass.
    Let freedom ring!

    It was just a little white table…
    But it took my words away when I hugged Uncle John good night and wanted to thank him for serving our country so bravely. So I just hugged him even harder and told him I loved him.
    Uncle John hugged me back even harder than I had hugged him.

    And that’s when I knew what I could put on the table: My promise to put the words from my heart into a little book about America’s White Table. And in the book I’d use Gretchen’s pictures and Samantha’s song and Mama’s story about Uncle John and his friend Mike—because I hoped that everyone who read it would set a white table on Veterans Day, too—so the brave Americans the little table honors won’t ever feel forgotten by the country they loved so much.

    Then in the salt on the little white table…
    I traced in the grains of their families’ tears—what each man and woman who serves America is to me, a…
    Hero
    And that’s when I saw the tears of pride fill my Uncle John’s eyes.

Author’s Note
    THE HISTORY OF THE WHITE TABLE
    The POW story of Uncle John and his cell mate Mike was purposely not based on any one particular story, but rather was compiled from different service members’ acts of heroism during the Vietnam War. This choice was made to allow America’s White Table to represent every branch of the military, and be a universal sign of brotherhood for all MIAs and POWs.
    As a symbol of missing and captive service members, the MIA/POW table originated during the time of the Vietnam War. All known American prisoners of war (POWs) were released in 1973, following the Paris Peace Agreement between North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States. While the agreement ended the long war, open wounds were left in America’s national consciousness. An unpopular war in America, the Vietnam War brought hard times to our nation and even more so to its veterans. The soldiers and military personnel sent to serve there in active combat returned to an unfriendly homeland that largely didn’t honor their service and sacrifice of self on foreign soil.
    However, out of those troubling times came new outward symbols of caring for our MIA and POW service members. Initiated by loving family members and concerned organizations, these outward symbols included: POW bracelets, yellow ribbons, a POW flag, and the MIA/POW Remembrance or Missing Man Table.
    A group called the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association or the River Rats set the first MIA/POW Remembrance Table. During the Vietnam War this daring group of airmen came from different branches of America’s armed forces. They took their name from missions flown into North Vietnam and the combat zone surrounding Hanoi along the Red River. The missions were dangerous, and pilots took strength from their brotherhood of courage and shared knowledge.
    In the spirit of that brotherhood, the River Rats pledged themselves to taking