A Tribute to All Veterans 11/7/2010

A Tribute to All Veterans
On Sunday morning 11/7/2010 while I was driving back from Las Vegas, Nevada to California, I was listening via my Sirius Radio to CBC Radio (Canada Broadcasting Corp.) program. It was a tribute to Canada’s Veterans Day. The program was devoted to stories of veterans which were very interesting and moving. I thought we should all take time and recognize how our armed forces are making our freedom possible by devoting their most precious thing called life to preserve it for us. They fight for us and sometimes give their lives. Those who are injured live with their disability for the rest of their lives. For this, we need to take extra time and personal effort to thank them. The next time you see a soldier, reach out and thank him for making our freedom possible. I would like to share with you the article that I found which best explains the day that has become Veterans day.
A Kansas town's tribute becomes a national holiday
By Marti Attoun
Veterans Day is a star-spangled celebration in Emporia, Kan., for not only did the holiday originate there 50 years ago, but townspeople built the country’s first memorial honoring veterans of all wars.
In 1953, an Emporia shoe cobbler, Alvin J. King, proposed that Armistice Day, a day set aside to remember World War I veterans, be renamed Veterans Day to honor all veterans, whenever or wherever they served.
“Alvin never served a day in the military, but he was a true patriot,” recalls the late Thomas Tholen, a World War II veteran of Company B, a unit of Army recruits from Emporia (pop. 26,760). King was too young to serve in World War I and too old to serve in World War II, but his nephew fought with Company B and King adopted the group.
“He was just a working man, kind of a local character,” says Tholen, who died Sept. 28 at the age of 84. “He furnished the chickens for our dinners.”
Emporia celebrated its first Veterans Day on Nov. 11, 1953. The nation joined the next year after King collared U.S. Rep. Ed Rees, also of Emporia, with his proposal and Rees helped push a Veterans Day bill through Congress. Another Kansan, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into law in 1954.
“Company B passed the hat and raised $165 to buy King a suit so he could go to Washington, D.C. He only had bib overalls,” Tholen recalls.
About 2,800 veterans live in the Emporia area and they’re like family, says Ken Bradstreet, 77, a World War II combat veteran and recipient of a Purple Heart. Bradstreet is a familiar face at schools where he talks of his military experiences and about flag etiquette.
“Kids will holler, ‘Hi, Ken,’ and I’ll say, ‘Where’s your smile? You woke up today with freedom. You should be smiling.’”
A True-Blue Salute
Like King, Bradstreet came up with an idea to salute veterans. In 1988, an Army tank was displayed in the Soden’s Grove Park with a flag and small sign designating “Veterans Memorial.”
“It looked horribly lonesome,” Bradstreet recalls. “I’d go there and stay for a quiet time to be with the guys I left behind.
“I went there one day and every inch of that tank was covered with graffiti. I was so mad, I told my wife that I was going to do something about it. All I wanted to do was to get it painted and get a couple of benches and some shrubbery.”
Bradstreet made a 20-minute patriotic speech to the city fathers. He got far more than he asked for.
In 1991, the city dedicated a $450,000 All Veterans Memorial, the first in the country honoring veterans of all wars. Six stone pylons in the Circle of Honor remember those who served in the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War. Beside the circle is the country’s first memorial to Persian Gulf War veterans.
A gazebo shelters a monument to Marine Sgt. Grant Timmerman, of Emporia, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1944. A Walk of Honor is flanked by 34 plaques recognizing military units and veterans groups from Emporia.
Four years ago, Emporia went great guns again and turned Veterans Day into a week-long tribute.
“We wanted more people involved in honoring veterans,” says Liz Martell, director of the Emporia Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We were looking at something that could bring the community together.”
This year’s 50th anniversary All Veterans Tribute! includes a veterans recognition ceremony, USO show, M.A.S.H. party, memorial service, band concert, and military field base set up at the Lyon County Fairgrounds with exhibits and re-enactments. More than 75 patriotic floats, color guard and military units will participate in the Veterans Day parade.
Ever year, Bradstreet helps judge a student essay contest on patriotism. Two years ago, 12-year-old Erica Bennett, whose grandfather was a World War II prisoner of war, read her poignant winning essay at the awards ceremony.
“Veterans Day is a day we should respect and give our thanks to veterans and soldiers who risked their lives, jobs, families and many other things to maintain American freedom,” she wrote.
Emporians couldn’t agree more.
From Armistice to Veterans Day
On Nov. 11—at the 11th hour of the 11th day in the 11th month of the year 1918—World War I ended. After four seemingly endless years of trench warfare and enormous casualties on both sides, an armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany.
As word of the war’s end sped across America, people were jubilant—church bells rang out, fire whistles sounded, and people in towns all over the nation flooded the streets with impromptu parades and singing and rejoicing. The day became an instant holiday, marking the end of the terrible European ordeal, and the eventual return of America’s soldiers.
At first though, Armistice Day, as it was called, was an entirely spontaneous holiday, and the observance wasn’t officially recognized until a 1926 congressional resolution stated: “The recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through goodwill and mutual understanding between nations . . . ”
President Calvin Coolidge called upon officials to display the flag on all government buildings and invited Americans to observe Armistice Day in schools, churches, and other appropriate places.
A 1938 act of Congress declared Nov. 11 a legal holiday—“a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day.’” And while veterans were certainly honored on that date, it continued to be a day marking the end of World War I, the conflict President Woodrow Wilson had called “The war to end all wars.”
But then came World War II. Following the close of that conflict—and sparked by the proposal from Alvin J. King—Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day, this time to include the honoring of all soldiers, wherever and whenever they served.
In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first Veterans Day proclamation:
“On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”
Now, on Nov. 11, Americans salute all those who serve or who have served, no matter what the place, no matter what the sacrifice.
Marti Attoun is a freelance writer in Joplin, Mo.
First appeared: 11/9/2003