Each year around Veterans Day we produce a magazine we call “Our Heroes.”

It is one of our favorite things to do each year, and we spend a lot of time on it. We start back in September, and then devote a lot of time in the month of October to get it done. It includes the whole staff with selling advertisements, graphic design, proofreading, printing and distribution, and, of course, writing the stories.

Every year it takes time to find these heroes we will write about, do the research on them, and then try to create a story which will honor their service to our country. And, every year, we get deeply involved with those we write about.

Sometimes we can actually interview the person who is a veteran of one of the Armed Forces, but quite often the hero we are writing about is dead, sometimes killed in war, sometimes having died years after their having been in the military.

I know I have developed a strong attachment to all the veterans I have had the honor and privilege to write about over the past 15 years. I know the reporters here at the Register have felt the same kind of connection. I can tell it when they come into my office and excitedly tell me about some things they have found out about the person they are going to write about.

This year was no different, with Fiona writing about two very different women who served, one alive and one recently deceased, and Kevin writing about two men, both of whom are deceased.

Both of the two men I wrote about were deceased, and were from different centuries and served in very different wars.

It was hard to find out information on a man who died more than 110 years ago. But luckily two people, A.B. Russ and Bonnie Schuster, had done quite a bit of research on Patrick Downs, and I thank them for sharing it with me. I found some more information on him and the unit he served in during the Civil War, and tried to weave a story about this man who lived in a totally different era.

It is such a sad thing that he and his wife, Catherine, are buried in unmarked graves in Wells. And in another few years, there will be no one around who knows about this tragic situation and so it is likely their final resting places will remain unidentified forever.

I also have to thank Duane Bromeland, who had done a bit of research on his father’s service in World War II. As in so many cases, Don Bromeland had not shared much of his time in the war with his family, and Duane found out this information after his father was gone.

While I feel close to all the people I have written about, I have to admit I felt a special affinity to Don Bromeland and his son Duane. That is because my father also served in the Navy, and specifically, in the U.S.N. Submarine Service.

The difference is that while Don Bromeland served for a few years in World War II, and then came home, married and started a family, my father served just after World War II, and remained in the Submarine Service for 21 years. He ‘graduated’ from the Navy almost the very same day I graduated from high school.

My father had to go on six month long sea duties aboard a submarine while I was growing up. He never talked much about where he had been, or what they had done. I suspect it was in the South Pacific, along the Korean coastline. That was the war that was going on while he was in the Navy, although it was actually called a conflict, not a war.

When my brothers and I wanted to know what life aboard a sub was like, he told us to watch a movie called ‘Run Silent, Run Deep.’ We did. It did not look like fun. Trapped underwater in a cramped tube with dozens of depth charges exploding right outside the hull.

I wonder if Duane Bromeland and his siblings have seen that movie. From what I remember about the film, it seems like it was just what Don Bromeland survived aboard the Trigger.

This year’s magazine is a little different, as not one of the six subjects for our stories was killed in combat. And yet, each and every one of them we consider to be a hero because of their service to our country.

Once again, I hope that you find reading these stories as interesting to read as we did in creating them.

And, we salute all of our veterans, no matter what they did during their service to our country. We all need to say “Thanks for your service.”