Reflections from History and Faith:  Veterans Day

By Jeff Olson

As I sit down to write this, and as the Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations grow ever so closer, I can’t help but reflect upon how much I have to be thankful for. However, I also must be careful not to focus too soon on those special days until I first take a pause and remember some of those for whom I am very thankful and grateful. Veterans Day is a day I hold in high esteem and at the same level as Memorial Day and second only to Christmas in its personal importance, meaning, and place in the American story and human journey.

Although we honor our Veterans every November 11, any day of the year is always a good time to thank a Veteran for his or her service. Like you, there are many Veterans I want and need to thank but I sense a most profound and personal obligation to mention those within our family and close friends: one died in battle and some of the others lived on with internal wounds which never completely healed: Millard Base, Wayne Olson, Jack Gauthier, J.D. Spearman, Charles Krulic, Woodrow Wallace and Loyal Lamansky. Though there are so many veterans no longer with us in this life, they certainly are in spirit, in memory and in their enduring legacy.

As USMC Chaplain Dennis Edward O’Brian reminds us: It is the soldier more than the minister who has preserved our freedom of religion. It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has preserved our freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the orator, who has preserved our freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the community organizer, who has preserved our freedom to protest. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag. 

As we observe this Veterans Day, we should take special notice that this year marks the centennial of the establishment of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. On November 11, 1921, Hamilton Fish laid the first wreath at the Tomb. He was the New York congressman who brought before Congress House Joint Resolution 426 nearly two years earlier. As Fish described what should be the unknown soldier’s origin: “He should not be taken from any particular battlefield, but should be chosen that nobody would know his identification or the battlefield he comes from. He should represent in himself the North, the South, the East and the West.” The resolution called for “Providing for the bringing to the United States of the body of an unknown American, who was a member of the American Expeditionary Forces, who served in Europe and lost his life during the World War, and for the burial of the remains with appropriate ceremonies.” It should also be noted that Hamilton Fish was a combat veteran of World War I and had been commissioned to serve as commanding American officer of the famed 369th Infantry Regiment, the “Harlem Hellfighters.”

As we look forward to each new day that freedom unfolds, let’s remember that freedom cannot be preserved by our veterans alone. Vigilance is still the price of liberty, and it will always come down to the age-old battle on the home front of good versus evil. It starts and ends with the individual citizen: the fireman; the law enforcement officer; the doctor; the paramedic; the plumber, the electrician; the teacher; the mechanic; the janitor; the business man/woman (and the list goes on) – living, loving, and working within family and community in concert together on a foundation of core American values. It is here where the strength of America is greatest and it is here where we can and must be unified as patriots with the will and resolve to know and perpetuate America’s history and heritage and to hold our leaders to the highest standard of service and accountability that God and our constitution require.

Liberty is not a gift; it is a legacy to be preserved and a decision made by each of us every day in choosing: personal responsibility over personal autonomy; self-government over self-gratification; freedom over license; initiative and self-reliance over dependency and servitude. It’s been said that if you want to thank a soldier, be the kind of American worth fighting for. In the words of Ronald Reagan, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

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