Crowds applaud vets on Armistice Day
Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2008
James Wages pushed himself up onto legs weakened by age, gripped his wheelchair for support with one gloved hand and raised the other to his brow in salute of the passing flag.
The Camden native proudly wore his Navy uniform, and like most of the audience gathered in the Capitol rotunda Tuesday for Veterans Day, donned the trademark garrison cap of the VFW, Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Arkansas observed Veterans Day with the rest of the nation in a ceremony that began at the 11 th hour of the 11 th day of the 11 th month — the moment the armistice was signed in 1918, ending World War I. The Arkansas National Guard’s 106 th Army Band added to the day’s pageantry in Little Rock, as did a new law that allows all veterans to salute the flag, whether in uniform or not.
Wages fought his way to his feet unassisted time and again to salute the flag whenever required, from presentation of the colors to the national anthem to taps. His hands trembled at times with the effort, but he never hesitated. It was simply a matter of honor for the 81-year-old retired petty officer first class.
“We are here today to express our appreciation for our veterans. To look them in the eye today and say, ‘Thank you, ’” said Col. Mike Ross, deputy chief of staff for operations of the Arkansas National Guard. “To reach across the miles to our service members overseas. … Let us not get so entwined in our daily lives that we forget to say thank you.”
He looked out on a crowd of veterans, some with wounds that never fully heal.
A row of ribbons peeked out from behind Wages’ tan jacket, giving a glimpse at his combat history with the Navy medical corps. The colorful slivers included more than one Bronze Star and service medals from World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
Across the filled rotunda stood a line of the current generation of sailors, in sharp blue uniforms holding their white caps in folded hands. Former members of WAVES, the female division of the Navy from World War II, Tuskegee airmen from the nation’s first black Army Air Corps unit, submariners, infantrymen, Marines, other airmen, and soldiers young and old — some Arkansans by birth and others by choice — remembered friends who were lost and those veterans still living.
In Fayetteville, vets gathered at several locations, including the annual Veterans Day Ceremony at the city’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Students from Alpena High School in Boone County, who outnumbered the veterans in the crowd of more than 300, passed out handmade flag pins to every veteran who attended.
Tom Lightfoot of Springdale, who served in the Navy on a destroyer in the Pacific, said he enjoyed visiting with the youths and appreciated their questions about his service. VA officials encouraged the students to talk to veterans at the conclusion of the program.
Lightfoot started talking to one of the students as he was leaving and the next thing he knew, 10 or 12 kids were asking him questions.
“It made me feel like a new man,” Lightfoot said. “I was tickled to death they were there. I really appreciate their questions.”
During an assembly at Oakdale Junior High School, Rogers Mayor Steve Womack told the students about Jack Lucas, a 14-year-old who lied about his age to join the battle in World War II. He leapt on two grenades to protect his fellow soldiers, and, after many surgeries, returned with the Medal of Honor to junior high school to finish his education.
Lucas, and many other brave soldiers like him, are his heroes, Womack said, and they are the men whose example he tries to follow.
Womack himself serves as a colonel in the Arkansas National Guard.
In the Capitol rotunda, Gov. Mike Beebe thanked the audience for taking the time to remember those in uniform.
“If you speak English well, thank a teacher,” he said, expanding on a saying. “If you speak English at all, thank a soldier.”
Beebe noted the various veterans groups in the rotunda then called on the Vietnam War veterans to be recognized by the crowd.
“We don’t often talk about the despicable way the American people treated Vietnam vets,” he said. “And that’s the word for it: despicable.”
The comment was followed by a standing ovation by the crowd that brought tears to the eyes of some Vietnam veterans among them.
Jim Farrar, a retired Air Force technical sergeant and C-130 cargo plane loadmaster, stood in the rotunda as the crowd dispersed and told of the two times he returned home from Vietnam. He described walking through San Francisco International Airport in uniform as “dangerous.” It was difficult, he said.
Like most decorated veterans, Farrar shook off assertions that his achievements were extraordinary and simply said he was doing his job. Farrar was part of a crew that dropped the heaviest bomb in combat at the time, kicking a 10, 000 pound bomb on a pallet with a parachute out the back of a C-130 B to clear a landing zone for ground troops.
Stories like his echoed around the room’s white marble walls — tales of combat, of bravery and horror, of survival and loss.
“So on this Nov. 11, there’s not more that we can say other than, No. 1, thank you. And No. 2, we love you,” Beebe told the crowd. “We love you for your service to our country and what it means to the rest of us.” Information for this article was contributed by the Northwest Arkansas Times and the Benton County Daily Record.
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