GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — While fireworks light up the skies across the Piedmont Triad this Independence Day, some veterans are dodging the sight and sounds.
“We always have a quiet celebration,” said Betsy Carty, the wife of an Army veteran. “It’s the not knowing when they’re going to happen and then you’re sitting there watching T.V. and boom.”
Booms bring back memories for her husband when he served in the Vietnam War.
“Some of them are really big boomers and they sound like bombs and some of them sound like incoming,” she said. “A lot of the noise is just repetitive and if a veteran’s having a bad day, it could really make for a rough night or a week.”
She tries to keep him calm. Carty told FOX8 there was a time when neighbors set off fireworks so close, it rattled their house.
“It can make him anxious; it makes me more anxious than him maybe because I don’t want to see him have a bad day or a bad week,” Carty said.
They try to drown out the noise by wearing earplugs and turning up the volume on the T.V.
“Just be aware,” she said. “You’ve had bad days, and something triggered your memory so try, for those who know they have veterans, especially of foreign wars, to think about it, to think about what they have been through for our country and what they go through because what our country does to them sometimes.”
Carty said the best spot to see fireworks is at a professional show rather than setting them off in your neighborhood.