Veterans Day draws a crowd

On this Veterans Day, the 90th year since the Armistice was signed to end The War to End All Wars, the crowd at the Wilson County Courthouse was unusually large. Perhaps it was because the 90th anniversary constitutes a memorable mark. Perhaps it was the two wars that are under way this Veterans Day. Perhaps it was the imminent change in administrations. But more likely the crowd exceeded expectations because so many school children were involved in the 90-minute ceremony.

This ceremony, like others sponsored by the Wilson Patriotism Committee, was long on involvement. Three JROTC units took part, two school children placed a wreath, and others sang patriotic songs. There were prayers and demonstrations, flag lowering and raising and a 21-gun salute from a squad of elderly men with M-1 rifles. The noon chiming of a church's carillon competed with the speaker's voice when the ceremony ran past an hour. 

Regardless of the motivations of the 500 or so people who came out on a beautifully clear fall day, it was good to see so many gather to honor veterans. And many veterans were there to absorb the adulation and to honor their comrades. Among them was E.D. Winstead, who was trapped on Corregidor at the beginning of World War II and spent most of the war trying to survive in a Japanese prison camp. When he was liberated, Wilson welcomed him home with ceremonies at that same location where he sat today, in front of the Courthouse steps. Winstead, a quietly genial man who became a math professor, once told me that after his treatment as a POW and the cruelties he saw from 1942-45, he could never buy a Japanese car.

This 90th anniversary of the Armistice that ended a war — but not all wars — makes for a great day to honor Winstead and others like him.