SHAKO: Veterans Day 2015

Vets Getting More Attention.

Is it your 4GWAR editor’s imagination or are veterans getting more attention from the media, industry and the public this year?

Veterans and U.S. Air Force Brigadier Generaql Barry Cornish, commander of the 18th Air Wing, salute the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action wreath during a Veterans Day ceremony on Kadena Air Base, Japan. The veterans are from Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9723.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Lynette Rolen)

There were stories about veterans’ health and employment needs on radio, television and in almost every newspaper across the country. Businesses from local restaurants to national chains like J.C. Penny, Home Depot and Meineke were offering special deals for veterans and their families. And there seemed to be a healthy turnouts at local Veterans Day parades and other outdoor events.

But there are some who think parades and solemn memorial services aren’t enough to help those who have served their country, like the author of this op ed article, that first appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

U.S. Army retired Lt. Col. Luta C. McGrath — the oldest living U.S. veteran — is honored during a Veterans Day ceremony near the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery Nov. 11, 2016.
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley)

In May, on Memorial Day, the United States of America remembers the honored dead, those who gave their lives in this country’s wars since 1775.

Every November on Veterans Day (no apostrophe, we’ve been informed — despite what the calendars and holiday sale ads say), Americans honor all who served or continue to serve in uniform — in war and peace. November 11 is the anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I – the “War to End All Wars” — in 1918. Unfortunately, history has proven that was an overly optimistic term for what turned out to be the First World War.

After years of bloodshed in the 20th and early 21st centuries, we’d like to pause here to remember the sacrifice of all those who serve their country. Even far from a combat zone, many of them have risky jobs on aircraft carrier decks, in fast moving Humvees and high flying aircraft. There is hard work, as well as danger, in airplane hangars and ships at sea. Depots and warehouses are stuffed with equipment and supplies that can blow up, burn, sicken or maim the humans working nearby.

Those risks are illustrated in some pretty amazing images in an insurance company’s television commercial thanking “those who dared to take the oath.”

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SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress or parade uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.

FRIDAY FOTO (June 26, 2015)

Tough Customer.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Gunnery Sergeant Ezekiel R. Kitandwe)

A member of Special Operations Command throws the shot put during field competition for the 2015 Defense Department Warrior Games, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, June 23, 2015.

The Warrior Games, founded in 2010, is a Paralympic-style competition that features eight adaptive sports for wounded, ill, and injured service members and veterans from the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy/Coast Guard, Air Force, Special Operations Command, and the British Armed Forces.

To see more photos of these amazing people, click here.