McKenzie High School guest speaker Dan Baker began his
comments during Thursday's Veterans Day event by
offering a special thanks to Principal Terry Howell.
"He is an asset to this school, a great asset to the
community and a great patriot. We appreciate him so
very much," said Baker.
Before the hour was over Howell proved his mettle just
days before McKenzie men, some of whom only recently
walked the halls of the school as students, would
prepare to leave their hometown for the uncertain
cities and sandy fields of Iraq.
"Sometimes I break the law," Howell confessed,
referring to lapses in monitoring his speed on the
highways. This day, he continued, he would break the
law in front of the entire assembly composed of the
student body plus 85 veterans and 130 guardsmen of
McKenzie and Milan's Company A, 230th Engineer
Battalion.
Then, in a poignant moment of heroic civil
disobedience that had soldiers expressing their
approval with strident calls of "HOAHH!" he prayed -
eloquently - on the day he said was his father's
favorite holiday. Franklin "Brat" Howell, a World War
II Army veteran who passed from this world two years
ago, would have been proud.
McKenzie Veteran Al Wainscott
salutes the American flag as Company A soldiers
post the colors. |
Despite the huge numbers of military veterans and
guardsmen in attendance, Howell followed tradition,
reading aloud the name and branch of service of every
veteran present as well as each member of Company A.
Student Brice Priestly lent further honor to special
guests in reading the words correctly attributable to
Marine Corps Chaplain Denis Edward O'Brain, who said,
"It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us
freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier,
not the organizer, who has given us the freedom to
demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag,
who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is
draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn
the flag."
Guest speaker Dan Baker, owner of The Picture Frame in
McKenzie as well as a Carroll County bus driver, is
also a retired US Army sergeant first class with over
25 years of service. In the military he was a member
of the 18th Airborne Corps and is a graduate of
Spanish Intelligence Analyst School, Defense Language
Institute (in which he studied Russian and Spanish),
Winter Warfare School, and Defense Intelligence Agency
Analyst School. As a soldier, he received seven
commendations and engaged in combat operations in
Vietnam, El Salvador, and East Africa.
He reflected that, as a 17 year old senior on Veterans
Day in 1964, an "old guy" from the local VFW post had
spoke of charging machine gun bunkers in "a far off
place called Korea."
Although at the time he paid scant attention to the
account, it came back to him just four years later
when, he says, "I found myself at the age of 21 in a
bunker in South Vietnam, leaning over a machine gun,
waiting for a North Vietnamese soldier to charge me.
Over the years, I have reflected upon that irony many
times."
He came to realize, because of his own personal
experience, that "generation after generation of
Americans have many such stories to tell: students,
farmers, workers, teachers and shopkeepers have been
taken from their busy lives in pursuit of the American
Dream and had to answer their nation's call."
Earlier, Student Council President Heidi Thomas had
alluded to the same irony in announcing Samantha
Doster's recitation of the poem, "You Can't tell a Vet
Just by Looking".
"These heroes are in your community everyday," Thomas
said. "You pass them on the streets, see them in local
restaurants, go to church with them, and see them
working in various jobs."
The assembly was further enhanced by the expert talent
of students Bethany Ellis singing the national anthem,
Kimberly Faye Gaskins singing God Bless the USA and
the MHS band's performance of a medley of military
anthems and another combining patriotic speeches and
spirituals.
Students Priestley, Hunter Downing, Courtney Creasy,
and John Kermit Laughrey read from letters written
home by soldiers in Iraq.
Students Brice
Priestley, Courtney Creasy, John Kermit Laughrey and
Hunter Downing read letters written to loved ones at
home from Iraq.
In a moving tribute to letter-writer Sgt. Dale Panchot
from Minnesota, Priestley read, "I was reading my
Bible the other night and in the book of Genesis... it
said when God created the heavens and earth he made
four rivers, two of which are here in Iraq, the Tigris
and the Euphrates. So, after I found that out, I had
to go down by the river and touch the water. I tell
you, it was something else."
Hunter Downing read from a letter penned by Command
Master Chief J.D. McKinney, III, who explained to his
wife and children, "The children have a right to grow
up as you and I did, carefree. Others before me have
ensured our freedoms, and now it's my turn to stand on
the wall."
Courtney read from a letter written by Marine Sgt.
Tony Watkins to Adina, his wife of one year, that
recounted the passion he felt in seeing an American
flag, previously flown at the site of the World Trade
Center towers and covered with hundreds of signatures,
raised amongst his fellows in Iraq.
"The emotion of seeing this large symbol of what we
are here for was almost more than I could hold down,"
he wrote. "This flag made of simple cloth
re-emphasized to all who saw it that they were here in
this desert hole for a reason, not to exact revenge
but to enforce justice."
John Kermit read from a letter written by Marine
Reserve Lt. Col. Tom D. Barna, to his son, Alex. Barna
was once again in Southwest Asia (Middle East), after
having previously served in Desert Storm when Alex was
two years old.
"Son, my deployment seems a little more personal this
time. As you know, it was our nation that was
attacked. It was our people who died. And this fire
has been brewing for quite awhile... I am here so you
won't have to one day come back and finish something
we didn't take care of here and now... Your grandpa
served in Korea and in Southeast Asia... He fought so
that I could live in a world of peace... Now it's my
turn, along with men and women of my time... to once
and for all bring a time when our children - that's
you, Alex - can live in a world of real peace."
"Who are these Americans and why do they fight?" Baker
asked during his address, recalling Lincoln's lament
of "so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom."
"We are a nation unlike any other; a free people
determined to prosper in a free land," he continued,
decrying those who say America is not responsible for
what happens to other people in far off places with a
quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King, who said,
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere."
"There are some who say the world does not appreciate
the sacrifice Americans have made to vanquish
tyrants," Baker declared. "Yet I know that any one of
these valiant veterans here today can bear witness to
the look of despair in a child's eyes in a far off
place, a child who suffered under the boot of tyranny.
"There are some who say no people or cause is worth
the shedding of one drop of precious American blood.
There may or may not be merit in any of these
arguments, but soldiers and sailors and airmen and
Marines don't make policy...yet for 230 years (they)
have answered their nation's call with unhesitating
devotion to duty."
The terrorist tyrant America faces today is the same
tyrant previous generations faced, he said, adding,
"We have beaten him before and we will beat him
again."
Baker said it was the same tyranny that caused facist
leaders to attempt to enslave Europe, Asia and
ultimately the world; that threatened liberty with the
darkness of communism; that saw a brutal, Iraqi
dictator murder and pillage his way into Kuwait; that
cruelly attacked innocent American citizens on 9-11;
that gathered in Afghanistan to deprive its citizens
of liberty and to plot crimes against humanity.
"And when the same Iraqi dictator murdered his own
people and threatened the security of the world," he
continued, "America's citizen soldiers, sailors,
airmen and Marines said 'It will not stand.'"
The soldiers of Company A, he said, and their comrades
currently engaged in the war on terrorism, "represent
the very best America has to offer. They do not fight
for wealth, not for territory, nor to enforce the will
of a king or potentate. They do not fight to subjugate
or conquer. As their comrades seated before them
fought to preserve liberty, justice and freedom for
America and for freedom loving peoples around the
world, so will the citizen soldiers of Company A. The
soldiers of Company A have declared that injustice
will not stand, that liberty will not be vanquished,
and that the terrorist tyrant will not prevail."
He offered thanks to his fellow veterans, United
States citizens, and the soldiers of Company A for
whom he also wished Godspeed and victory, before
intoning in closing, "God bless the United States of
America!"
Taps was performed by MHS band members Andrew Bertino
and Kellett Hochreiter while members of Company A
posted and removed the colors in a moving tribute of
respect to the flag.
Another inspirational moment during the ceremony was
the Veterans Memorial Service performed by members of
VFW Post 4939 of McKenzie: William Robertson, Raymond
McDade, and Odell Pate and auxiliary president Lucille
Cozart.
McKenzie VFW Post 4939
members Odell Pate, Raymond McDade, and William
Robertson and auxiliary president Lucille Cozart
performed the Veterans Memorial service.
Unlike previous Veterans Day events at the school when
soldiers and veterans were more often considered those
of previous generations, who fought wars that may seem
as foreign to youth as the countries in which they
were fought, there were many emotional students in the
audience as they prepared to part with fathers,
brothers and boyfriends just a week later.
Also new to the assembly were supportive wives and
mothers of living soldiers while missed were Lola
Alexander and Sybil King who have long represented
their late husbands, Jim Alexander and Chandler King,
at the event, however, Virginia Claire Edwards was
present to honor her late husband, Rip Edwards.
Among wives and other family members of Company A,
Minner Hicks, mother of Richard Ozment and grandmother
of Kent Ozment and Stephen Brown, was on hand to honor
her children along with Stephen's mother Sheila
Willis. Hicks said another grandson from Texas, Jesse
Chase, will soon be leaving for Germany.
"I'm real proud of all of them," said Hicks. "They
stand for what's good."
"America just got the best we have to offer," said
Willis.
Veterans and members of
McKenzie's National Guard unit enjoy lunch in the
McKenzie High School cafeteria where they were treated
to a chicken and dressing or sub sandwich lunch.
