Please thank your father for his service.
In my opinion, your dad would love a quilt made by you. It could be a lap quilt size and the pattern can be as simple as a rail fence in red white and blue. The quilting design can be stitch in the ditch or tacked by machine to speed up the process if time is a factor. Our guild makes quilts for Veterans as part of our charity programs. (Quilts for Veterans is on our labels) We have given the quilts at a church service where the boy scouts present the quilts folded up neatly and handed to the veterans one by one.