(Editor’s note: The following was submitted as a letter to The People Speak. This newspaper agrees with the writer’s opinion on this topic.)

As I attended the Veterans Day Ceremony at the Appling County Courthouse last Saturday it occurred to me that things had really changed through the years. In the last half of the 1950’s and the first half of the 1960’s I remember vividly the Veterans Day parade and celebration in the City of Baxley. The Parade would begin around Tollison Street and end at the city gymnasium where a bountiful feast of Bar-B-Q, Brunswick stew and chicken and rice was provided. There would be bands from the elementary and high schools and sometimes an out of town school band. Sometimes we would have military or VFW band. The members of the American Legion and VFW would march along with some military units. Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts would also be in the parade. The Citizens and their children would line the streets by the hundreds. I marched in all those parades as a band member. Everyone would be wearing a red poppy to honor the Veterans. (The reason that the red poppies were worn was because the poppy was a small red flower that grew on the battlefields of France among the death and blood from the men who died fighting for their country).

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

that mark our place; and in the sky

the larks, still bravely singing, fly

scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

loved, and were loved, and now we lie

in Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

to you from failing hands we throw

the torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

in Flanders Fields.

- John McCrae- 1915

The attendance was sparse for the ceremony to honor those who have fought to preserve our freedom and marks a problem that I perceive is not just indigenous to our community but is systemic of our country. We have forgotten how to show our respect and thanks and to give honor to those who served our country. The ‘Greatest Generation’ is passing on and their number is smaller by the year. My Father and Uncles to a man heard the call of their country and answered here I am. They went and served and fought in foreign lands (thank God not here) because their country needed them. Their generation knew how to thank them and celebrate their sacrifice. We also honored the Korean Veterans but never as a country understood how to treat the Vietnam Veterans. We now have Gulf War Veterans and Iraqi Freedom Veterans and we need to figure out how and again begin to give them their due. We had soldiers from the Third Infantry Division from Fort Stewart in the ceremony and I wish that Appling County could have shown them more support. I give credit to those County and City officials that took time out of their busy schedules to take part in the event. I do not know the answer. I have just observed the problem but we sure need to learn how to show our appreciation to those who enable us to have all the freedoms that United States Citizens enjoy.