School Kids Honor Veterans at Winterville Service
By Allison Floyd
Nov. 10, 2009
WINTERVILLE – Veterans don’t always want to share their stories about the horrors of war, retired Marines Corps officer Ray Fairman told a crowd gathered Saturday to honor America’s heroes. And when they do open up about what they saw on the battlefield or in the operating room, it’s to other veterans or military doctors.
But the men and women who fought in Europe and the Pacific, Korea and Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to preserve American freedom should tell their stories to their families, Fairman said.
That’s the only way the next generation will understand why we have our traditions and what they mean, he said.
“We’ve done so much to our history, rewritten our history,” Fairman said. Decoration Day (originally held to honor Union soldiers) became Memorial Day in honor of all fallen soldiers. Armistice Day (celebrating the end of WWI) has become Veterans Day, which is celebrated this Wednesday.
“If the youth of today don’t become the leaders of tomorrow, this country will fade away. We can’t pick up at 50, 60, 70 years old and carry on these traditions,” he said.
About 175 people turned out to Pittard Park for the fourth annual Thanks for Our Freedom ceremony and barbecue.
This year, instead of inviting a guest speaker, organizers asked school children from Clarke, Madison, Oconee and Oglethorpe counties to come to the service and say a few words.
Most thanked the veterans in the crowd for the freedom they enjoy; many thanked specific service members – fathers who fought in Vietnam, grandfathers who fought in Korea or WWII, brothers currently serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Kentavious Patman, at the event with his twin sister, Shuntavious, thanked their father, who is an orthodontist in the United States, but currently is deployed with the Army Reserves to Afghanistan as a medic.
Both Kentavious and Shuntavious, students at Coile Middle School, aspire to some sort of medical profession because of the example set by their father, Kentrell Patman, Kentavious said.
While the twins thought of their father, other kids and teens at the ceremony marveled that they’ll never know the vast majority of the veterans who fought for them.
“You do this incredibly important duty for people you don’t even know,” said Lizzy Reese, who was crowned Junior Miss Marigold at this year’s Winterville Marigold Festival.
Miss Marigold Grace Williamson agreed.
“It’s hard for me to picture myself packing up and leaving my family to serve a country of strangers,” she said.
Before settling in for a tangible thank you – free lunch – Fairman again encouraged veterans to talk and the next generation to listen.
“Do we pass on our history and stories? Do we pass on what it really means to be an American?” Fairman asked. A veteran of Vietnam and Desert Storm, he finds it easier to talk to other veterans or law officers than to share with loved ones, he said.
“If I isolate my family, if I don’t pass on what’s happened to me, my experience dies with me.”
Source: On Line Athens
Editor’s Note: Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, November 08, 2009.
Cody McClain, a junior from Oglethorpe County High School, speaks to veterans and their families at the Veteran’s Appreciation Day celebration Saturday at Pittard Park in Winterville. Photo by Kelly Wegal.
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