Veterans' Day {November 11}

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, an armistice between the Allied Nations and Germany went into effect, thus ending World War I.

In November 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service..."

At first, Armistice Day's purpose was to honor WWI veterans, but in 1954, after World War II and after American forces fought aggression in Korea, Armistice Day was changed to Veterans' Day in order to honor American veterans of all wars.

The observation of Veterans' Day is always November 11. This date preserves the significance of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month and it focuses attention as to the purpose of Veterans' Day: to honor America's veterans for their patriotism and love of country, and for their willingness to serve and sacrifice.

My father-in-law is a world War II veteran. He was a senior in high school when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and he and a couple of buddies wanted to enlist right away. The only thing was, he was 17 at the time and his mother would not give him permission to enlist early. He waited to turn 18 and to graduate from high school before signing up to join the Navy.

Upon enlisting, he had a choice to serve on submarines or airplanes. He told the recruiter, "I'm going air. I can see a heck of a lot more from up there than I can from down there."

He went to boot camp at Great Lakes and to Norman, Oklahoma, for aviation ordnance school, radar school and aviation gunner school before being shipped to the naval air station in Jacksonville, Florida. He and his crew flew a PBY, a patrol plane that could take off and land on water. Their job was to search for pilots and crew who had been shot down off the East Coast and to look for enemy submarines that might be spying along the coast. 

At 19 years of age, he was sent to Espirito Santos in the New Hebrides Islands to serve with Combat Aircraft Service Unit (CASU) 10. That job entailed servicing and reconditioning planes that had been damaged and ready them for service.

At one point, Dad and another airman were on a bombing mission with four other planes. They made several bombing runs and then made a strafing run. The pilot was killed; Dad bailed out of the plane at 500 feet off the ground. He landed in a banyan tree on a small, uninhabited island in Japanese territory and stayed there for a couple weeks by himself, subsisting on a chocolate bar and whatever else he could find. The Japanese searched for him but he hid in the roots of the banyan tree and avoided captivity. "I was afraid to go out in the daylight because they'd see me, and I knew damn well they wouldn't bother to haul me in. They'd just kill me." Finally, he decided to walk on a coral reef to a neighboring island, where he met a U.S. Army soldier. He spent a few days in the sick bay and then returned to his unit.

Dad spent 18 months in the Pacific. He returned home just in time to marry the love of his life. They have been married 68 years.

His story of service is one of love: love of God, love of country, love of family.