A Holiday for Heroes

Montgomery County Honors Those Who Fought For Freedom On Veterans Day

Mark Williams
Music Editor

World War I has often been called the war to end all wars, the war that changed everything; today, many historians consider it to have the greatest social and political impact in the annals of human history. It is estimated that nearly 62 million soldiers from all nations took part in the war, of which 8.5 million were killed, 12.5 million received recoverable injuries, and 7 million were permanently injured.

The United States, which entered the war late, suffered among the fewest losses, at approximately 116,000, but the war still had a great impact upon Americans. According to President Woodrow Wilson, the purpose of World War I was to make the world safe for democracy; but there was more than a little irony and shock in the president’s plea to the nation, considering that he had narrowly won re-election in 1916 with the slogan, “He kept us out of war.”

Some Americans were impatient to get into the combat that had been going on in Europe for years. There was lingering resentment because 124 Americans had died in 1915 when a German torpedo sank the luxury liner Lusitania. It made little difference that the German embassy had placed newspaper ads warning that “travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.” Years later, it was discovered the Lusitania did indeed have munitions aboard, just as the Germans had claimed.

Other Americans wished to maintain a strict neutrality, subscribing to the view of George Washington and the other founding fathers who counseled non-intervention in foreign conflicts. In his final statement to the American people, our first president maintained that “the great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics…”

But when the U.S. officially entered the war, personal feelings were set aside: huge numbers of war bonds were purchased, food and fuel were more or less voluntarily rationed and citizens worked to keep war-related factories running 24 hours a day. More than two million American soldiers went off to Europe -- but the he initial exhilaration quickly wore off as reality was grimy combat in trenches and exploding grenades and chemical warfare. One soldier wrote home that war is a “combination of fear, anger, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, loneliness, homesickness” -- and is certain that war would surely always be around, as “peace will be settled by men who have never known combat and hold no dread of another war for they don't know.”

World War I officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, just outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

One year later, President Wilson proclaimed November 11, 1919, as “Armistice Day” -- the first nationwide commemoration of the war. “To us in America,” said the president, “the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…” 

Two years later, England laid to rest an unknown soldier in Westminster Abbey, a somber way to commemorate the losses wrought by war. A year later, in 1921, the United States followed-up with their own version: an unknown soldier, who had already been laid to rest at a cemetery in Europe, was selected and placed aboard a ship to Washington D.C. to fill the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Thousands of Americans traveled from across the country to pay their respects, lining up to see the casket laying in state in the Capitol rotunda and to take part in a funeral procession down Pennsylvania Avenue. Each state sent in floral arrangements to adorn the tomb. President Warren G. Harding laid a wreath of flowers on the casket as Taps played. The event had a powerful effect among Americans at the time; as the unknown soldier not only symbolized the nation’s losses, but each American’s sacrifices in war. 

In the following years, 27 states responded to that emotional event by adopting laws declaring November 11 as a legal holiday. In 1926, Congress reacted by enacting a resolution asking the President to issue a proclamation to display the nation’s colors on all buildings on November 11. On May 13, 1938, Congress enacted a new law that made Armistice Day a national holiday. As World War II bore a new generation of soldiers, the concept of how to honor them changed somewhat: in 1947, two years after the end of World War II, a “Veterans Day” took place in Birmingham, Alabama, celebrating all American veterans.

In 1954, a bill was introduced in Congress that would change the purpose of Armistice Day to honor veterans of all wars. In June of that year, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the bill into law, officially renaming Armistice Day to Veterans Day. Later that same year, Eisenhower issued a proclamation creating a Veterans Day National Committee -- responsible for planning all national ceremonies, as well as providing suggestions for Americans on how to celebrate Veterans Day. In 1958, two more unknown soldiers -- one casualty from World War II, the other from the Korean War of the early 50’s -- were re-interred alongside the Unknown Soldier of World War I.

In 1968, a law was passed to change the date of Veterans Day to the fourth Monday in October to give Americans a three-day weekend, thus affording them time to visit cemeteries, engage in ceremonies, and visit veterans memorials; but other Americans felt that November 11 was too much of an important day to forget. In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford, the only president to ever visit Montgomery County, signed into law a bill that returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of November 11.

Veterans Day continues to be observed on November 11, regardless of what day of the week on which it falls. The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: a celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good. 

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It was General Douglas MacArthur who said during his retirement address before Congress that “old soldiers never die, they just fade away” -- but the truth is that it is old soldiers who have always led America. They have shown us how to love our country, revere our military, how to honor our war dead -- and they have warned us of the dangers of wishing for war. “It is well that war is so terrible,” said Confederate General Robert E. Lee, or else “we should grow too fond of it”; generations of soldiers have echoed that sentiment -- from Appomattox to Iraq. Now, as we celebrate another Veterans Day, we welcome home a new generation of soldiers.

Most of these new veterans will proudly support their country in any future entanglements it may face, but many of those returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will doubtless join a tradition of brave veterans who quietly hate war; these men and women can teach us why war is never romantic, but may sometimes be worth fighting all the same. Fighting soldiers fall quickly out of love with war. Living in overcrowded quarters, their individualism but a memory, they find their young dreams of glorious war now distant and odd. “I once had a dim notion about the ‘romance of a soldier’s life,’” wrote a Union soldier after the first Battle of Manassas. “I have bravely got over it since.”

Some veterans voice their feelings clearly: Confederate General William T. Sherman’s admonition that “war is hell” is often remembered for its irony, but forgotten is Sherman’s audience -- a graduating class of military cadets. Seeing a wish for war mounting among his listeners, Sherman offered simple advice: “Suppress it.”

Adults can be equally prone to romantic notions of wars: “The intellectual community is apt to say we have to ‘do something,’” wrote Desert Storm General Colin Powell in 1995. “But in the end, it is the armed forces that bring back the body bags and have to explain why to parents.” Some even give up all illusions of noble service. “Never mind about the glory of a uniform,” a Korean War veteran wrote to a friend considering enlistment. “There are too many dead and maimed glorious and honor bound boys.”

Old soldiers are always hungry for a fight: Theodore Roosevelt was in love with war when he stormed San Juan Heights and never lost his romantic sense of combat. Even at the death of his son Quentin in World War I, Roosevelt was triumphant -- saying the boy had “had his crowded hour.” As a young lieutenant colonel in World War I, George S. Patton came under heavy fire, he remembered his grandfather, a fallen Confederate general, resolved that it was his noble destiny to be another Patton who died on the field of war. He lived through the battle, however, going on to command campaigns on two continents in World War II.

Those old soldiers not looking for a constant battle, those who speak openly of the evils of war, say honesty can help us in future fights -- and history may just be on their side. Combat had no romance after World War I; a generation had been lost for nothing but the dreams of dead kings. But when darkness fell again in Europe, the weary West stood up to fight in World War II. “We are all conscientious objectors,” said English pulp fiction scribe Rupert Croft-Cooke, “and all in the war.”

It is also the prerogative of the old soldier to speak frankly of war and plainly of peace. Another privilege: speaking for those who did not live to speak for themselves. At the end of a letter home, a downtrodden Army private put forward that “all new men” shared his hatred for combat. He wondered if old men felt differently and if someday he would feel differently, too. Three days after writing the letter, the private was struck down in combat, just south of Rome. 

Memorial Day has now become a day of reflection and remembrance -- a day to remember all of our fallen heroes from all of the wars; it is a day to think about the families that will forever grieve for their lost loved one, a day to be thankful to those who have served and made the ultimate sacrifice; they fought and died to win the freedom and democracy that we Americans cherish so dearly; they also fought and died to bring that same freedom and democracy to the people of other countries as well.

For those of us who have never been on the field of battle, risking life and limb for God and country, the principles at play often seem abstract; but Dr. John C. Hagee, founder and senior pastor of the non-denominational evangelical Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, once painted this vivid account of the war experience:

“Picture in your mind the soldier at Valley Forge, as he holds his musket in his bloody hand. He stands barefoot in the snow, starved from lack of food, wounded from months of battle and emotionally scarred for the eternity away from his family surrounded by nothing but death and carnage of war. He stands, though, with fire in his eyes and victory on his breath. He looks at us now in anger and disgust and tells us this:

“I gave you a birthright of freedom born in the Constitution and now your children graduate too illiterate to read it. I fought in the snow barefoot to give you the freedom to vote and you stay at home because it rains. I left my family destitute to give you the freedom of speech, and you remain silent on critical issues, because it might be bad for business. I orphaned my children to give you a government to serve you and it has stolen democracy from the people.”

The men and women who fight our wars don’t serve any particular president or policy; rather it is for American values and the American people that they fight and, when necessary, die. They serve from the true belief that, through all times, it is this country’s democratic ideals that must prevail. From the fight against fascism to our era’s war on terror, they stand steadfast on the wall that safeguards our rights and freedoms from constant threat. 

As Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address, we must “care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” As we pray for the safe return of our friends and family, we must remember to honor their service and legacy by doing everything we can at home to reward their bravery abroad.

Today’s soldier is very different from the ones of the last century. Alongside 18-year-old high school graduates, there are ever increasing numbers of married men and women with children and houses and mortgages. As military recruitment efforts struggle, more reservists are asked to leave behind their jobs and communities to defend democracy afar or help Americans coping with natural disasters at home.

Texans in particular should be proud of our track record in military service: from the brave last stand at the Alamo in 1836 to Omaha Beach to the desert sands of Iraq, Texans have earned a reputation for not backing down in the fight for freedom even when it may cost them their lives. It is to honor these brave soldiers that we celebrate Veteran’s Day, and take time to remember so much given on our behalf.

Texas has our nation’s third-largest veteran community, with nearly 2 million of our 26.5 million veterans living in the Lone Star State. Texas is also home to a large number of defense facilities, with over 114,000 military personnel stationed in our bases. Texans serve around the globe, on land, sea and air, defending this nation and all who value freedom. 
There is no greater sacrifice for any greater cause than that given by the American soldier. As we take Veterans Day to honor their memory and their continued struggle, our soldiers continue to fight, as they will always do. It is our obligation to live up to the freedoms they guard with their lives, and to remain thankful, not just this Veterans’ Day, but every day.

As we pay our respects this Veterans Day, we at The Bulletin hope you also will also pause to show them gratitude for their bravery and sacrifices. Veterans and the public are invited to join area patriotic and historical societies this morning (11/11) to pay tribute to veterans at 10 AM on the corner of East Davis and San Jacinto Street in Downtown Conroe. Call 936-588-1854 for more information. Meantime, a World War I remembrance ceremony takes place at Memorial Park in Houston at 10:30AM.

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