It would be really nice to have a veterans page that pulled from the status in the profile (similar to how the In Memory page works) to easily identify and honor our veterans, rather than have to set up a separate custom page.

My question for you is how do you envision that working exactly? In the Classmate Profiles we know that somebody served in the military, and we know what branch they served. But that's currently all we know. On the Classmate Profiles page itself we display a flag is the Calssmate served in the military, and you can hover over the flag with your mouse pointer to see what branch the Classmate served in (or you can actually go into the Profile itself of course). So we're already showing the fact that somebody served in the military and the branch served on the Classmate Profiles page itself.

Now obviously a whole lot more can be done than that to honor our veterans, and I've seen some absultely stellar Veteran pages out there. But my question for you is what could be pulled together in an automated fashion considering the only information we have is what we're already displaying on the Classmate Profiles page? If you have some ideas on this we're always open to better ways of honoring people who have served our country.

I was just thinking that you could pick up the veteran status as a data element (similar to the deceased data element) to create the list of veterans on a separate page. It would be gravy if we could apply and group by service (e.g., army, navy, air force, etc.)...this would be like grouping the deceased by year.

Brad, it's not a huge deal. I'm sure I can create something, it would just allow a real time update to the page without having to keep track separately to keep everything up to date and in synch (in case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a bit of a perfectionist).

Maybe I'm off base here and am the only one who thinks this would be a nice feature. If so, please don't worry about it.

Oh no, I was just asking for your thoughts on how it could work. It's a perfectly valid idea. People are very particular about these types of pages, just doing a little brainstorming to see what might be possible with this.

Brad Switzer wrote:

I think that if the page were set up just the same as the In Memory page, it would work well. At least then, everyone that has a military tribute page, would gain a page back on their site! Also, if it is set up to separate the names by branch (simliar to the In Memory page that separates based on year of death), that would help keep the page organized. Plus, being able to edit the page in general (for adding music or special items that apply to all of those listed), would be great. This is a great idea! I hope that you can incorporate it someday!

Vicki - Great idea!!