2010 Veterans Day Contest Results

Catherine Trisch, from Lake City, Florida has won the $5000 2010 Veterans Day Scholarship Essay Contest. Congratulations to Catherine, who also won $500 for her school, and $250 for her class!

Mackenzie Dolan, from Brighton, Colorado and Jennifer Donaldson, from Pocatello, ID were finalists who also submitted wonderful essays.

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The Sweetest Words

When I found out about this contest, I asked my dad if he would introduce me to one of his veteran friends. I will never forget the smirk on my dad’s face when he said, “Sure, I’ll introduce you to Jack Malone”. Jack Malone? Wow, I thought with a name like that, this person could be very interesting. I was a little nervous the first time Dad took me to meet Mr. Jack but I also knew he would never put me in any type of danger. As it turns out, Mr. Jack was never a gunslinger, gangster, or even a mysterious figure in a book, but he did turn out to be quite a character.

Mr. Jack, as I call him, lives in a retirement home. He has a small apartment with a bathroom, kitchen, and room for his easy chair. He has a single bed, which is right beside his only window. When I visit Mr. Jack, I usually sit in his wheelchair. I was not sure how we would react to each other, or if we would even get along, after all, he is in his late eighties and I am only eighteen. However, Mr. Jack made me feel right at home from the first time we met.

I began visiting Mr. Jack to find out things about him and his history. To my surprise, he was more interested in finding out about me, than in talking about himself. He wanted to know if I am a good student and I told him that I am. He told me that he was a good student in school but that he never went to college. He joined the Army instead. He wanted to know what kind of school activities I was involved with and I told him I was a cheerleader and that I played basketball and softball. He grinned when I mentioned that I was a cheerleader. He said his wife used to be a cheerleader when she was in high school. I told him I had won a couple of big beauty pageants and that I was currently the queen of my high school. He said his queen had passed away almost twelve years ago. I could tell that he had lost the love of his life and that he was getting sad. I thought it was a good time to end our first visit and I asked him if I could come back and see him again. He said I could come whenever I wanted.

Over the next few months, I discovered that Mr. Jack had lost his wife of sixty-five years to cancer. They had never had any children together but she was at home waiting for him when he came home from serving overseas. They lived a simple life, she stayed at home and he worked on diesel engines, a trade he had learned in the army. Whenever they could afford it, they would take weekend trips to the river or to the ocean and go camping. He showed me pictures of fish that he and his wife caught. I saw pictures of him and his wife riding bicycles and a picture of her sitting in a motorcycle sidecar. You could tell from the smiles on their faces that they cared dearly for each other. Mr. Jack never married again after his wife passed.

I was curious to see how Mr. Jack felt about being a veteran. Additionally, I wondered what Veterans Day meant to him. My dad advised me that sometimes veterans are not comfortable talking about their time in the military, especially if they had fought in a war. He said Mr. Jack might tell me what I wanted to know, but that I should listen and respect what he was telling me. Then one day Mr. Jack just opened up and began to trust me. He told me a story that I will never forget.

He called my name and said; “Where do you reckon I was on Christmas Day of 1943?” Well, I said, I know the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and you said you were in the army, but I do not have a clue on where you might have been in 1943. Mr. Jack said; “I was in the jungles of New Guinea searching for an American pilot that had been shot down”. Mr. Jack went on to explain to me that he had fought in the islands of New Guinea and that the islands were full of Japanese soldiers living in the mountains, in caves. He said they would come out at night and attack our troops and then they would hide in their caves during the day. He also said that the Japanese had learned our language very well and could sound just like our soldiers.

Mr. Jack told me that one of our pilots had been shot down and that he was part of a patrol sent on a rescue mission. He said they had a good idea of where the pilot was but that the rescue was going slow because of the rough terrain. There were only four people in his group; Mr. Jack, two soldiers, and a sergeant from Alabama. Mr. Jack said the group had started separating from one another because of the jungle and the steep hills. The sergeant was becoming angry because the group was not staying together. Finally, the sergeant got so mad he broke the silence by shouting out; “I Suwannee! If you guys don’t close up your ranks and get up here, the Japs are going to kill us all!” Mr. Jack said they hurried up and kept moving as fast as they could, and then a few seconds later, to their surprise, they heard a low shout. It was the pilot's voice. He heard the angry sergeant and called out to Mr. Jack’s patrol. Thankfully, Mr. Jack and his patrol led the pilot back to safety. At camp that night the pilot told them all; “Those were the sweetest words I’ve ever heard. I knew there were no Japanese that knew anything about the Suwannee. I will never make fun of the way you rednecks talk again.”

Mr. Jack took great pride in that rescue and he has strong feelings about being a veteran. He says he is one of six boys from his high school that all joined the service on the same day. He stated that back in his day people did not question why they had to join the service. They just knew that America was going to war and they wanted to be part of it.

I asked Mr. Jack about veterans today, if he imagined they had it as tough as he did. He just shook his head and said that anybody who is at war has it rough. It does not matter what side you are on or what war you are fighting. He said we ought to pray for our troops’ safety and hope that they would all come home soon.

I questioned if he thought soldiers back in his day were better received when they came home than today’s soldiers. He said that when he returned from the war there were large parades and everybody thought that anybody in a uniform was a hero. He does not see that anymore. He says that people are too worried about being politically correct and he feels the country is splintered in its support for veterans. I asked Mr. Jack if he wanted to be recognized as a WWII veteran in this year’s Veterans Day parade. Mr. Jack says that his parades are behind him and he is too old and weak to be in a parade. Then he asked me to tell him what I thought Veterans Day was about and how I was going to celebrate it. I told him that I had researched Veterans Day on the computer and I had spoken to my dad about how he felt about Veterans Day. My dad was once a marine. In my research, I learned many things about Veterans Day.

Veterans Day, as most people know it today, is just another government holiday. Most people think of it as just another reason to have a three-day weekend. People are confused when they discover that it may or may not be observed on a Monday. Unfortunately, when people are only looking for a day off from work or a long weekend, they have really missed the meaning of the holiday.

Veterans Day actually began back in November 11, 1918. On that day, an armistice, or agreement to stop all fighting and hostilities, was reached between the allied nations and Germany. World War I stopped that day. Later, on May 13, 1938, Congress approved an act designating November 11th as a legal holiday. The holiday was called “Armistice Day”, a day set aside to observe world peace and provide recognition of World War I veterans.

Of course after World War I came WWII. WWII required the greatest mobilization of American forces in our nation’s history. There were veterans of every type, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard. Thousands of Americans worked in factories to produce supplies needed to fight the war. This war was not just fought by our veterans; all of America felt the crunch of war through shortages and rationing of all materials.

After the Korean Conflict it became apparent that there was a need to honor all veterans, regardless of when, where or how they had served. On June 1, 1954, at the urging of several veterans service organizations, Congress amended the act of 1938 and replaced the word “Armistice” with the word “Veterans”. November 11th became the day to honor all American veterans.

In June of 1968, a Uniform Holiday Bill was signed, intending to give Federal employees four national holidays where they would have three-day weekends. The thought was that these long holidays would encourage travel and recreation, thereby stimulating the economy. However, President Gerald Ford recognized that November 11th was a day of historic and patriotic importance, not the start of a three-day holiday. On September 20, 1975, the president signed a Public Law, which returned the observance of Veteran’s Day to November 11th, regardless of where the date fell in the week. This new law was first observed in 1978. Now you know that November 11th is a day set aside for everyone to remember the sacrifices of not just our veterans, but the sacrifices of the world when people have engaged in war. It is a day when we should ask ourselves, “Why?" On this day, we should contemplate better ways to resolve conflicts. This is a day we should observe peace and be in remembrance of those who sacrificed life, limb and personal sacrifices to preserve the freedoms we often take for granted.

I have always had great respect for veterans. My dad and his five brothers are all veterans. My two grandfathers were both veterans. In addition, my great-grandfather on my dad’s side was a WWI veteran. Mr. Albert, as my dad calls him, is buried in a National Cemetery, in the South, where prisoners of the civil war were once held captive.

I have been thinking about how I want to observe Veterans Day this year. One of my uncles is riding his motorcycle in a big parade and he invited me to ride along with him. At first, the idea of holding a flag in a parade appealed to me but now that I have learned so much about its history, I plan to celebrate November 11th in a different manner. I am a junior member of the American Legion Women’s Auxiliary Group and we are making wreaths to be placed on soldiers’ graves in a National Cemetery. I plan to make a wreath of my own and place it on Mr. Albert’s grave this coming Veterans Day.

I will spend Veterans Day handing out Thank-er-chiefs that I created. I plan to give them to as many veterans as I can possibly reach in one day. Then, I am going to make the drive to a military base where my brother-in-law is stationed and I am going to spend the rest of the upcoming weekend with him, my sister, and my eight-week-old nephew. I am going make sure my brother-in-law knows how much I appreciate what he is doing and that I will be praying for him everyday as he prepares to leave for Afghanistan. I will call my brother in Korea and my cousin in Pensacola and wish them both a happy Veterans Day.

I am so glad that I met Mr. Jack. He was a great friend and I feel like he had many more stories to tell me. I could tell he was getting older because his eyes seem to be more watery each time I saw him. I hoped that it might be because our time together was so special. I now know what my dad meant when he first told me about veterans; he said they just want someone to listen to them. I hoped to listen to Mr. Jack for many years to come. In fact, I was so excited because he said that he has some coins he wanted to give me from New Guinea. I truly believe the bond that developed between Mr. Jack and me transcended generations. Unfortunately for me, however fortunately for Mr. and Mrs. Jack Malone, he recently reunited arm-in-arm with his “Queen” to escort her through eternity.

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Bibliography
(2003, October). The History of Veterans Day. Retrieved from http://www.history.army.mil/faq/vetsday/vetshist.htm
(2009, November). History of Veterans Day. Retrieved from http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp
The History of Veterans Day. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.military.com/veterans-day/history-of-veterans-day.htm