Remembering our veterans

November 10^th is the 246^th birth­day of the U.S. Marine Corps, found­ed at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia in 1775 Semper Fi, Marines!

And the 11^th will be the 102^nd anniver­sary of Armistice Day, pro­claimed by Woodrow Wilson in 1919 at the con­clu­sion of World War I, the “war to end all wars.”

The day was not made an offi­cial hol­i­day until a Congressional act of 1938 and it was not until 1945 that a vet­er­an named Raymond Weeks pro­posed the idea to expand Armistice Day to cel­e­brate all vet­er­ans, not just those who died in World War I.

On May 26, 1954, President Eisenhower signed a bill to for­mal­ize Weeks’ pro­pos­al. Just a few days lat­er, Congress amend­ed the bill on June 1, replac­ing “Armistice” with “Veterans.”

Originally sched­uled to be observed every year on November 11^th, it was changed in 1971 to be in accord with the obtuse­ly named “Uniform Monday Holiday Act” and moved to the fourth Monday of October, where it remained until 1978 when it was returned to always occur on November 11^th.

Legally, two min­utes of silence is rec­om­mend­ed to be observed at 2:11 p.m. EST on that day.
Believe it or not, the day has been sub­ject to dis­cus­sion regard­ing the spelling of Veterans. While it is com­mon­ly print­ed at either Veteran’s Day or Veterans’ Day in cal­en­dars and ads, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs web­site states that the attribu­tive (no apos­tro­phe) rather than the pos­ses­sive is the offi­cial spelling.

Local observances in 2021

Clark County is blessed with hav­ing many events sched­uled for obser­vance of the day.

• WWKY, 990 AM and 102.9 FM, began doing vet­er­an-relat­ed inter­views on the 1^st and will con­tin­ue through the 11^th.
• The Elks will be pro­vid­ing break­fast from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m. on the 6^th.
• Trinity Church of God is prepar­ing break­fast that same day at 9:00 a.m.
• The 8^th will see a Veterans Recognition Service at Campbell Junior High School at 9:00 a.m. and on the 9^th, the GRCHS JROTC cadets will be plac­ing flags on vet­er­ans’ graves at the Winchester Cemetery.
• On the 11^th, Super Shine Car Wash will offer free car wash­es to vet­er­ans from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Baker Intermediate School will have “Biscuits and Brew” from 8:30 to 11:00 a.m., Shearer Elementary School will have two recog­ni­tion ser­vices, one at 9:00 a.m. and one at 1:00 p.m., a Veterans Day Celebration at GRCHS bas­ket­ball are­na at 9:30 a.m., Veterans Recognition & Celebration at City Hall at 11:00 a.m., a Veterans Event at Boonesboro Trail at 2:00 p.m., Applebee’s is offer­ing free meals to vet­er­ans from 11:00 a.m. to noon.

It is deeply appre­ci­at­ed by all vet­er­ans and their fam­i­lies that these many activ­i­ties salute their sac­ri­fices. It would be even bet­ter if all these var­i­ous facil­i­ties and enti­ties would coör­di­nate their recog­ni­tions more close­ly to reduce over­laps which make it dif­fi­cult for some indi­vid­u­als to attend all they wish.

A closing story

Perhaps one of the best sto­ries relat­ing to vet­er­ans (per­haps apoc­ryphal) is the following:

Students enter­ing their class­room at the open­ing day’s bell found the room devoid of desks. After a peri­od of ques­tion­ing and con­cern, the teacher asked the stu­dents to stand around the perime­ter of the room as she went to the class­room door. As she held it open, in came a pro­ces­sion of men and women, each car­ry­ing a desk. They placed the desks back in an order­ly fash­ion and then went to stand at the front of the room as each stu­dent took his and her place. 

After things qui­et­ed down, the teacher began, “These folks stand­ing here are all vet­er­ans. They’re Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen. And they are the rea­son that you have desks to sit at today — not just because they brought them back into the room for you, but because they put their lives on the line so you would have the free­dom to be here. Try to remem­ber that today. And them.”

[ Chuck Witt is not only a tal­ent­ed writer, artist, and won­der­ful human being, but he is also among the many Clark County vet­er­ans to whom we owe a great debt of grat­i­tude. So to Chuck and all the men and women of this com­mu­ni­ty who have served, thank you for your ser­vice to our nation. –Ed ]