Mark WiedmerLike many other Americans, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball coach Jim Foster pretty much drives the same route to work every day as he makes his way from his home on Missionary Ridge to his office on the fourth floor of McKenzie Arena.
Why he takes his specific route is what makes Foster's daily journey unique and important, especially today as we celebrate Veterans Day.
"I drive down Main Street every day to Central Avenue, take a right past the National Cemetery, then take a left on 11th Street and drive past the Community Kitchen," Foster said over his cell phone Thursday morning as he and his Mocs waited in the Atlanta airport to catch a flight to New Jersey for this afternoon's season opener against Rutgers.
"I do that every day. I think of what those people (in the cemetery) have sacrificed and what those people (at the Kitchen) need."
The 68-year-old Foster understands the sacrifice of veterans far better than most because he is one, having served two tours of duty in Vietnam.
You want sacrifice? He joined the Army in 1966, serving until 1969, half of that time spent in Vietnam. When his brother John was drafted while Foster was wrapping up his first tour of duty, he served a second to keep his brother from having to serve in a war zone.
Not that Foster ever paints himself as the hero he was and is.
"I wasn't in the jungle on a daily basis," he said. "I wasn't crawling into tunnels to find an enemy you couldn't find. I wasn't poisoned by Agent Orange. But I got an early education about the world. It's a big world and we need to learn to function together in it."
Asked what he would like to see Donald Trump, our newly elected president, do for our nation's veterans, Foster said, "We don't put near enough money into caring for them. What's the Pentagon's budget? Over $500 billion (actually $585 billion in 2016)? It would be nice if we had a similar budget for the Veteran's Administration."
Instead, President Barack Obama's 2017 budget for the VA currently stands at $182.3 billion.
"You go through any airport in America, like the one we're in today, and you'll see signs proclaiming 'Welcome Home' to members of our military," Foster said. "Almost every college or pro athletic team has a 'Military Day,' and while that's very nice and keeps people aware of their sacrifices, it doesn't get to the core of the problems so many veterans face.
"There's a horror to war and we tend to think people can automatically adjust to returning to civilian life. Many of them can't. We should be spending so much more on our veterans than we do."
Indeed, not long after Foster and the Mocs boarded their flight, Alabama sent out a press release that its men's basketball team welcomed more than 150 military veterans and ROTC members to a Wednesday practice, where they met Crimson Tide coaches and players. Similar acts of kindness will be repeated all over the country today, as well as throughout the weekend.
To make sure his Mocs always are aware of our military's important work, Foster talks to his team about our veterans at least three or four times a year.
"Hopefully, they don't think, 'Here he goes again,'" he said with a chuckle. "But they need to understand the real world as opposed to the fantasy world some of us live in. The military makes it possible for us to live our lives."
Because the Mocs open on the road today, Foster won't be making his daily drive past the National Cemetery and Community Kitchen.
But he'll be thinking about it.
"I see a lot of different things on that drive," he said. "I see funerals. I see people tending to grave sites. I see a lot of people who desperately need a helping hand."
He paused for a moment, then closed the conversation with the following wish, a wish for Veterans Day and every other day of the year.
"What I'd like to see," he said, "is for people to care about these folks when they're alive as much as they care about keeping up the grounds that honor them in death."
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com