CLEVELAND, Tenn. – The region’s military veterans remembered their own and were honored by the younger generation on Veterans Day.
Many area schools, including Cleveland High School, held their own ceremonies.
Student government members unfurled an American flag across the Cleveland High gym floor and invited veterans, some from World War II and some not much older than the students, to join them in holding the flag.
Earlier, at the traditional 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month on what started as World War I’s Armistice Day, Bradley County veterans organizations held their annual ceremony at Johnston Park.
Bill Norwood, chairman of the awards committee, described the process of selecting the county veteran of the year for the Raymond H. Miller Patriotic Award.
“This is not an easy job when all the nominees are deserving and only one can be chosen,” he said.
State Sen.-elect Mike Bell, R-Riceville, announced that Tommy Townsend was chosen.
Guest speaker for the ceremony was U.S. Air Force Capt. Dawn Zink.
“A veteran is someone who at some point signed a blank check” to make whatever sacrifices necessary, including his or her life, for their country, Zink said.
At Cleveland High, Michael Laney, retired U.S. Army major and chairman of the communications and the arts department at Lee University, was the speaker.
Before a gym full of students and veterans, Laney said today’s active and reserve military accounts for less than 2 percent of the American population.
“We no longer share a collective memory of military service and the high price of suffering and sacrifice it demands of us as a nation,” Laney said.
That lack of collective memory is evident, he said, “from the White House to your house, from Congress to the church, from the battlefields to your backyard.”