Voice of the Mid-Columbia | Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash. |
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closeThursday, Nov. 12, 2009
Praising sacrifice on Veterans Day at Columbia Park
By Drew Foster, Herald staff writer
KENNEWICK — Military ribbons, each one colored and patterned differently, formed varied, visually unique tapestries on each uniformed chest they graced Wednesday.
Individually, they stand for specific accomplishments and moments in time. Together, the ribbons manifest ideals: leadership, dedication, achievement.
Speeches made during a Veterans Day ceremony at the Regional Veterans Memorial in Kennewick's Columbia Park were like so many of the rows of ribbons in the crowd. The words belonged to individuals, but collectively, speakers broached the same topics: character, integrity, support.
About 250 people gathered around the memorial's towering granite pillars to hear the numerous speakers, many of whom championed the idea of "doing more."
Retired Army Reserve Lt. Col. Rick Leaumont reflected on how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are affecting Americans at home.
"We take our shoes off when walking through airports," he said.
Americans aren't facing rationing. Americans aren't paying war-specific taxes. Americans aren't being required to donate blood. Americans aren't being herded into war industry jobs. The sacrifices most American civilians, families of troops not included, face during these 21st-century wars pale to what previous generations endured, Leaumont said.
He implored the crowd to write checks to the United Service Organization, donate blood, write letters to troops overseas and volunteer in their communities.
Jim Bogart, a World War II veteran now living in Pasco, gave a vivid, off-the-cuff account of the years he spent in a Manchurian slave labor camp and how he survived the Bataan Death March, when thousands of Americans and Filipinos captured by the Japanese after the fall of the Philippines were forced to march miles without food to prison camps.
"On that march, anytime anybody fell down and couldn't march, (the Japanese) killed them," he said.
Bogart talked about how hundreds of Filipino prisoners of war died each day in the labor camp and how a never-ending line of bodies led to a nearby cemetery.
Bogart paused for a moment before ending his speech.
"If it was possible for me, I'd do it again," he said of his participation in the war.
"What else can you say?" said Tom McMillin, president of the Tri-Cities Memorial Committee, who spent much of the 90-plus-minute ceremony detailing how the memorial was built and who built it. McMillin and his wife, Joyce, who passed away in 2005, conceived and organized the memorial's construction.
State Rep. Brad Klippert, R-Kennewick, shared a story about a man who bought a group of soldiers lunch during a flight, a small act that touched many of the man's fellow travelers.
Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., spoke of "the great duty" of serving the nation, and the importance of young people learning how military service has and will shape this country's history.
Frank Figueroa, president and general manager of Mission Support Alliance, a Hanford contractor, read Alfred Lord Tennyson's famous poem The Charge of the Light Brigade in pieces during his keynote address. Figueroa spoke of character and how the trait relates to veterans.
Tennyson's poem immortalized the charge made by more than 600 soldiers during the Crimean War in the 1850s. The poem highlights the British light cavalry unit's heroism, while lionizing the soldiers' dedication to their country.
"Let's never forget our heroes we have here today," Figueroa told the audience. "And listen to the last stanza from ... Tennyson: 'When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered. Honor the charge they made, Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred.' "
Before Tennyson's poem of war heroics was read and before Bogart described how POWs were killed on the Bataan Death March, Leaumont weighed the sacrifices made by veterans and military members compared to those made by civilians.
"All too often, these men and women make the ultimate sacrifice," Leaumont said of military members. "And we walk through airports in our sock-feet, and I don't think that's right."
* Drew Foster: 509-585-7207; dfoster@tricityherald.com
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