Really Observe Veterans Day

Sat., Nov. 4, 2000

Francis H. Potter Special To Staff writer

Nov. 11 falls on a Saturday this year. If it were a weekday we would have no mail delivery and the banks, schools and all federal and state offices would be closed.

But since this Veterans Day is a Saturday, it will get even less media attention than usual. There will be a short local memorial service but few will attend.

To some Americans, however, it is a day to fly the flag and reflect on the achievements and suffering of the veterans whose sacrifices bought and still ensure the freedoms we take for granted.

Nov. 11 was set aside in 1919 as a day to honor our World War I veterans. The date was chosen because it was at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, in a rail car in France that the treaty was signed ending the war.

The day was known as Armistice Day until 1954, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the name to Veterans Day, a day to honor all veterans who have defended our country and as a day dedicated to world peace.

I am proud to be one of those veterans.

I remember hearing President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on a cloudy Dec. 8, 1941, speak the words that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and that the day would “live in infamy.”

From our population of 132 million there were no protests, no action against the military or the government, no question that we might not be right and absolutely no thought, ever, that we did not have to win!

Losing this war, or signing a peace without complete victory, were never options. So in December 1941, at war with both Japan and Germany, our nation was unified, with only one goal.

Can we ever be again?

Since that date, I served 27 years, proudly wearing the uniform of our country, helping to preserve our way of life - from seeing the end of World War II, to flying on the Berlin airlift, to standing alert during the Cuban missile crisis (which brought the world perilously close to nuclear war), to many, many days away from home in other campaigns and exercises our leaders felt necessary.

So, I ask you to show your pride in this, the first year of the new century. Display your flag next Saturday. Tell the vets you know and others now in uniform that their work was and is appreciated.

Make this a day to honor them. May none of us ever be called upon to make such a sacrifice again.

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