With the shadows of World War II and the Korean War still lingering on the national landscape, Congress in 1954 transformed what had been Armistice Day into a national holiday to honor all veterans.
Intended to mark the end of World War I and honor the soldiers who had served during that conflict, Armistice Day was eclipsed by the greatest mobilization of American forces in history during World War II and a deadly struggle against an invading enemy on the Korean Peninsula in the early 1950s.
Nov. 11 became Veterans Day. The day is set aside to honor all those men and women who have honorably served their country – in peacetime and wartime – and as an opportunity for a grateful nation to show its appreciation to its living veterans.
On Veterans Day this year, we find our country entwined with violence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and U.S. military personnel deployed around the world.
About 130,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are serving in Iraq. Approximately 28,000 are members of the National Guard and reservists. Last week, the Department of Defense alerted an additional 47,000 citizen-soldiers to prepare for possible deployment as part of a troop rotation plan. Of those, about 650 are from Maine. If activated, they would join about 400 reservists and guardsmen from Maine units who are already serving.
One unit, the 112th Medical Company out of Bangor, has been deployed during three major conflicts beginning with the first Gulf War in 1990. Members of the air ambulance unit include pilots, mechanics and medics. Sixteen of the guardsmen, according to the On Guard, the newspaper of the Army and Air National Guard, were deployed in 1990 to Germany to replace an army unit sent to the Gulf, to Bosnia in 1999 and to the Persian Gulf for this war.
As of September, the unit had already transported 827 patients and logged about 2,200 flight hours since they began flying on May 2, the day after President Bush declared major hostilities in Iraq over.
For these men and women – and the many others who are serving – the war on terror and the pacification of Iraq are not theoretical policy debates about force strengths, a transformed military, nourishing democracy or a new world order. Every day brings uncertainty and danger as they go about trying to do their duty.
Back in the states, the Bush administration tries to avoid talk of individual casualties and to obscure pictures of flag-draped coffins as they come home. They paint the occupation in grand themes and talk of progress. Meanwhile, the hard slog, as Iraq was described by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, continues on the ground.
On Veterans Day, we owe our gratitude and respect to the men and women who serve our country today and to the veterans who have served our country in the past.
We also owe them our vigilance. It falls to us to hold accountable the policymakers who have sent them into harm’s way in our name and make sure they are brought home as soon as possible.
dfarmer@sunjournal.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
