Veterans Day has special significance at Lincoln University

Reviving the tradition

American Legion Riders past Director Pat McCormick holds a folded flag to be raised at the dedication ceremony for the newest Blue Star Memorial in front of Soldier's Hall on the Lincoln University campus during the Veterans Day ceremony Wednesday.
American Legion Riders past Director Pat McCormick holds a folded flag to be raised at the dedication ceremony for the newest Blue Star Memorial in front of Soldier's Hall on the Lincoln University campus during the Veterans Day ceremony Wednesday.

Without veterans, Lincoln University wouldn't exist, President Kevin Rome said Wednesday morning during an ROTC-sponsored Veterans Day celebration.

"We are so thankful for veterans throughout the world, but especially those who had the foresight and the vision during the Civil War to think that one day education would be really important in the state of Missouri - particularly for certain populations," Rome told more than 50 people in the Scruggs University Center Ballroom. "They had the vision to found Lincoln University in Jefferson City - and for that we are eternally grateful."

LU Curator Winston Rutledge - who graduated from Lincoln in 1965 and later served in the U.S. Army in Europe from 1966-68 - also pointed to LU's veteran connections, noting as a federal land-grant institution, "it was required that military tactics would be taught. As you came in today, you may have noticed the flags not only surrounding the Soldiers Memorial, but on the ground in front of it - in the initials "LU.'

"There are 771 flags - each representing one of the 771 officers commissioned into the service of this country by the university."

ROTC leaders wanted to "revive the tradition" of LU's annual Veterans Day observance beginning with a breakfast, then remembering the veterans and listening to an address.

For more than two decades - through 2010 - U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton was the annual event's featured speaker, and Cadet Lt. Col. Maggie Jones noted Wednesday's continental breakfast was the first offered since Skelton died two years ago.

"Much of what we have today in the military, and the protections that we have in our country, are due to the hard work that (Skelton) gave to the state of Missouri and to this nation as a member and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee," said Missouri National Guard Adjutant Gen. Steve Danner, this year's featured speaker.

"How we commemorate veterans - and our very understanding of this holiday - has evolved over the generations and over the country's wars."

Starting in 1919 as a "solemn" Armistice Day observance "on military posts throughout America" for those who died in World War I, which had ended the year before, Danner said, the holiday expanded around the nation after World War II and the Korean War, after Vietnam and the Gulf War of 1990, and again after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sparked the current Global War on Terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After veterans returning from Korea and Vietnam "were spit upon (and) called horrific names," Danner said, "they were the ones who ensured that our current veterans received the welcome that they, themselves, did not get."

Like Skelton said several times, Danner also noted American veterans form just a small part of the nation's population.

"Most Americans, and in most of America's major population centers, there is a really insignificant military presence," he explained. "With only ¾ of 1 percent of the population serving, most Americans do not have a family member who has served."

But the military also is trying to be more reflective of the nation as a whole, he said.

Although Memorial Day each May "is a day when we offer somber silence for our veterans who have passed before us," Danner said, we must "also remember that we need to celebrate all that veterans have done - and do - for us today."

Shortly after the breakfast, LU officials joined members of the Capital Garden Club to dedicate a "Blue Star By-Way Marker" in front of the Soldiers Hall flagpole on Lafayette Street.

Cynthia Brodersen, Blue Star Memorials chair for the Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri, noted the markers program began after the end of World War II.

"While it originally began to honor World War II veterans," she said, "its mission was enlarged and, in 1951, it was expanded to include all men and women who had served, were serving or would serve in the armed forces of the United States."

Today, there are 2,856 markers throughout the nation, she said, with the new one at LU becoming Missouri's 90th.

Danner called the markers "part of the fabric of our nation now - a national effort that goes a long way towards recognizing and thanking those who serve our country. ...

"The major point of these dedications is to remind Americans of the major debt we owe our military servicemen and women."