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Since our Declaration of Independence, over 60 million Americans have claimed the honor of having served the nation in its military forces. Since that time, over a million have lost their lives for our colors, with millions more wounded.
As we travel across our great nation, we see thousands of cemeteries where several million military veterans lie in their final resting places. Each grave marker of a veteran has a story as these service members all served their country.
They "answered that telephone call at 3 a.m." and went into harm's way to protect our freedom.
In their travels, they learned that life wasn't very easy for most people in this world. They learned that faith matters and freedom was impossible without sacrifice.
These veterans were blessed to have won life's lottery and to have been born in this country. They learned about physical courage, team work, the absolute virtue of a human being's great adventure and that all men fall.
Serving their county did more for them than what they could have ever done for it, as it gave them extraordinary adventures to live that were theirs and ones they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
Committing yourself to serve in the military makes you appreciate your own mortality and you realize the best quality of life is just getting home alive.
Many of our veterans are buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. The Little Arlington Cemetery in Cravensdale near Harpertown has almost 1,000 veterans interred.
During World War II, at the football stadium on Wimer Field in Elkins, a tree was planted and dedicated in memory for each service member from the area who lost his life in combat.
Each of the trees planted was a small tribute that the community could use to share in that loss and helped ease the pain of losing one of our native sons.
The trees served as a salute to those lost veterans, and as football games were played on the grounds of the stadium, the trees stood tall and silent like an honor guard.
This Veterans' Day, let's pause and remember our own who died in the service of their country including FC2 Robert Paul Laderach, U.S. Navy, killed Dec. 7, 1941, aboard USS Arizona (BB-39), Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; and Private William J. Irwin, USA Air Corps, who died May 24, 1942, in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Philippines Islands.
Sgt. James Shellace Armentrout, U.S. Army, has been missing in action since May 18, 1951, during the Korean War. There are countless others who died in World War I, World War II, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq and Beirut.
In addition, Randolph County residents killed serving in Vietnam were James Antolini, Randall Arbogast, Dennis Baxter, Gary Burgess, Tex Patrick, Roger Griffith, Thomas Hess, Bernard Jones, Fred Kerns, Cecil Kittle Jr., Steven Mollohan, Garry Shannon, David Shiflett, Robert Simmons, Samuel Summerfield, Russell Taylor and Robert Thompson.
LCpl. David Cosner was killed in the Beirut bombing; BT2 Mark Hutchison was killed on board USS Iwo Jima in the Middle East; and Sgt. R. J. Jimenez and Navy Corpsman Matthew G. Conte were killed in Iraq.
Our veterans were not extraordinary but usually ordinary young people performing remarkable acts of bravery and selfless acts of devotion to a higher cause bigger than themselves.
What was extraordinary was the country we loved. We loved who she was, what she stood for. We loved her for what she meant to us, and for what she had given to us. It did not matter where you hailed from as we loved our country more than our own lives.
Let's never forget the sacrifice our veterans made in defending our freedom.
Roger Ware
Elkins