Honoring Our Local Veterans

Editorial

On the first anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I – Nov. 11, 1919 – President Woodrow Wilson delivered the following address to the American people:

A year ago today our enemies laid down their arms in accordance with an armistice which rendered them impotent to renew hostilities, and gave to the world an assured opportunity to reconstruct its shattered order and to work out in peace a new and more just set of international relations. The soldiers and people of the European Allies had fought and endured for more than four years to uphold the barrier of civilization against the aggressions of armed force. We ourselves had been in the conflict something more than a year and a half.

With splendid forgetfulness of mere personal concerns, we remodeled our industries, concentrated our financial resources, increased our agricultural output, and assembled a great army, so that at the last our power was a decisive factor in the victory. We were able to bring the vast resources, material and moral, of a great and free people to the assistance of our associates in Europe who had suffered and sacrificed without limit in the cause for which we fought.

Out of this victory there arose new possibilities of political freedom and economic concert. The war showed us the strength of great nations acting together for high purposes, and the victory of arms foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of the common interests of men.

To us in America 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 nations In the years following World War II, an Alabama veteran of that great military conflict, Raymond Weeks, led a campaign to expand Armistice Day to honor all veterans – not just those who had fought in World War I. Federal legislation to do this and rename the holiday Veterans Day passed Congress and was signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954.

This Monday, Nov. 11, we’ll celebrate Veterans Day locally with a ceremony in downtown Lexington at the Lexington Presbyterian Church. Speakers will pay tribute to all veterans of the U.S. military who have served to protect and defend our country through the years.

There are many ways we can honor our veterans. One we would like to call attention to is an initiative to put wreaths on the graves of veterans at Evergreen Cemetery in Lexington this Dec. 14. Local residents Ron Perkins and Russ Elliott of Remembering Rockbridge Veterans are launching this new wreath laying program as part of the national Wreaths Across America Day.

Perkins said a list of all veterans’ graves at the cemetery was developed recently by Dennis Bussey, who has been cleaning veteran headstones. Virginia Military Institute cadets in the Building Bridges Community Service Club have volunteered to find and mark each veteran headstone to expedite wreath laying on Dec. 14.

Those interested in sponsoring a wreath for a veteran’s grave at Evergreen Cemetery are invited to visit http://www.wreathsacrossamerica. org/VA1079 where they can sponsor wreaths online, or they can contact Perkins at [email protected]. The goal is to obtain enough sponsors to place 120 wreaths on the headstones of all the veterans laid to rest in the cemetery, said Perkins, “to ensure that the individuals who served to protect the freedoms of our country are never forgotten, and to bring the community together in patriotic commemoration.”

Laying wreaths at Evergreen will not be a “one and done” effort, Perkins insists. When a cemetery joins the Wreaths Across America program, there is a commitment to continue the wreath-laying there on an ongoing basis. Any excess donations for wreaths received this year will be rolled over to help fund wreaths next year.

If the program is successful, the hope is that it can be expanded to include putting wreaths on the graves of veterans at Oak Grove Cemetery in Lexington and Green Hill Cemetery in Buena Vista in future years.