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Do it today and every day

Today’s holiday is a time to reflect on the state of the world and America’s role in it. This is the fourth consecutive Veterans Day on which the United States is at war, the first time Americans must acknowledge such a reality since Vietnam was our battlefield and we were drafting our young into military service to fight on it.

Now our battles are being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our servicemen and -women are being committed to a larger war, one with no defined battlefield. It is the War on Terror that was engaged in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington by a force that knows no geographical boundaries and proclaims a holy war against the United States and its allies.

Such a nebulous war against enemies who inhabit virtually every nation on the planet makes veterans, in some ways, of us all. But it is members of the military who are doing our fighting for us, doing our dying for us. And they are volunteers, not draftees. Appreciation of our military and its veterans should be an extremely vital expression to us right now.

It is not just the American Legion and the V.F.W. and Amvets who should be lobbying for veterans’ recognition. Americans, whether or not they have served in the military, should join in those efforts, especially now, with the nation at war. It is gratifying to know that in Knoxville, that is currently the case with the community’s elected leaders.

Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale has committed his energies and the county’s resources to providing land here on which to create a much-needed state and federally supported nursing home for veterans in this grand division of Tennessee, so that those vets who need such care can be close to their families.

Both Ragsdale and Bill Haslam, the city’s mayor, have been supportive of efforts by the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial Association to establish a memorial in Knoxville to fallen soldiers from this region.

Bill Felton, the association’s president, says the memorial would honor the names of more than 5,000 East Tennessee servicemen and -women who have died for their country since the start of World War I. Drawings have been made, architects consulted, and sites considered, including Krutch Park downtown, the association’s preference. No decision has yet been made, but Felton says the location along Gay Street, route of the annual Veterans Day parade, would be ideal.

Today’s parade features marching veterans, grateful citizens, bands and a scheduled flyover by four WWII-vintage aircraft. Blount Mansion just off Gay on Hill Avenue overlooking the Tennessee River is open today, free of charge, to military veterans, vets’ widows or widowers, active-duty personnel and their families, who will be given tours of the home of Knoxville’s founding father, U.S. Constitution signer and veteran of the Revolutionary War.

Nationally, the holiday is getting added attention, as the Veterans Administration, the Department of Education, and the History Channel have collaborated to produce a special, youth-oriented documentary, “The Story of Veterans Day,” to be aired on the History Channel today and this evening.

That the sacrifices of veterans are little understood by the young is acknowledged by the secretary of Veterans Affairs, Anthony Principi, who called the importance and value of such education “priceless.”

Felton’s veterans’ memorial association is trying to put a pricetag on educating the young people of this region, particularly, and is looking for a Knoxville location suited to a learning center for children where, Felton says, young East Tennesseans can “come to understand the meaning of wars and the sacrifices of those who fought and died.” He says he believes such a center will come into being. “There is nothing like it anywhere in the United States,” he says, and his organization would be proud to establish one here. At Metro Pulse, we believe that such a center is a great idea, as long as it doesn’t tend to glorify war and stays focused on the aspect of sacrifice for those who answer the call to duty.

Secretary Principi’s Veterans Day message to America asks the question, over and over, “Have you thanked a veteran today?” as it runs down the lengthy list of Americans’ freedoms, rights and privileges. It is a melodramatic message, invoking such images as the “seamless fabric of Freedom, woven on the loom of conflict” and “Liberty’s loving arms.”

But before you mock its flowery terms, remember that its underlying meaning is as sound as the Constitution we are all called upon, from time to time, to defend. Veterans of all the wars that were fought for the sake of this nation and its interests did not create our freedoms, our rights, our privileges. But we still enjoy those American presents because veterans were willing to answer the call and pay the price.

“On this Veterans Day, we thank them all,” Principi says. Amen.

November 11, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 46 © 2004 Metro Pulse