This will be a multiple
part article on the Tomb of the Unknowns and the special soldiers that guard
one of our nation’s most honored shrines.
We will start with a brief history of “The Tomb”.
The Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., is
also known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and has never been officially
named. The Tomb of the Unknowns stands atop a hill overlooking Washington,
D.C.
On March 4, 1921, Congress approved the burial of an unidentified American
soldier from World War I in the plaza of the new Memorial Amphitheater. The
white marble sarcophagus has a flat-faced form and is relieved at the corners
and along the sides by neo-classic pilasters, or columns, set into the
surface. Sculpted into the east panel, which faces Washington, D.C., are three
Greek figures representing Peace, Victory, and Valor. Inscribed on the back of
the Tomb are the words:
HERE
RESTS IN
HONORED GLORY
AN AMERICAN
SOLDIER
KNOWN BUT TO GOD
The Tomb sarcophagus was placed above the
grave of the Unknown Soldier of World War I. West of the World War I Unknown
are the crypts of unknowns from World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Those three
graves are marked with white marble slabs flush with the plaza.
THE
UNKNOWN OF WORLD WAR I
On Memorial Day, 1921, four unknowns were
exhumed from four World War I American cemeteries in France. U.S. Army Sgt.
Edward F. Younger, who was wounded in combat, highly decorated for valor and
received the Distinguished Service Medal in "The Great War, the war to
end all wars," selected the Unknown Soldier of World War I from four
identical caskets at the city hall in Chalons-sur-Marne, France, Oct. 24,
1921.
Sgt. Younger selected the unknown by placing a spray of white roses on one of
the caskets. He chose the third casket from the left. The chosen Unknown
Soldier was transported to the United States aboard the USS Olympia.
Those remaining were interred in the Meuse Argonne Cemetery, France.
The Unknown Soldier lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda from his arrival in
the United States until Armistice Day, 1921. On Nov. 11, 1921, President
Warren G. Harding officiated at the interment ceremonies at the Memorial
Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery.
THE
UNKNOWNS OF WORLD WAR II AND KOREA
On Aug. 3, 1956, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower signed a bill to select and pay tribute to the unknowns of World
War II and Korea. The selection ceremonies and the interment of these unknowns
took place in 1958. The World War II Unknown was selected from remains exhumed
from cemeteries in Europe, Africa, Hawaii and the Philippines.
Two unknowns from World War II, one from the European Theater and one from the
Pacific Theater, were placed in identical caskets and taken aboard the USS
Canberra, a guided-missile cruiser resting off the Virginia capes. Navy
Hospitalman 1st Class William R. Charette, then the Navy's only active-duty
Medal of Honor recipient, selected the Unknown Soldier of World War II. The
remaining casket received a solemn burial at sea.
Four unknown Americans who died in the Korean War were disinterred from the
National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. Army Master Sgt. Ned Lyle made the
final selection. Both caskets arrived in Washington May 28, 1958, where they
lay in the Capitol Rotunda until May 30. That morning, they were carried on
caissons to Arlington National Cemetery. President Eisenhower awarded each the
Medal of Honor, and the Unknowns were interred in the plaza beside their of
World War I comrade.
(Continued next Month)
From
the Commander
I
would like to extend my congratulations to Phil Richardson on his election as
Commander of Post 639. I hope
that all of you will support him in his endeavors.
I would also like to welcome the new E-Board.
The decisions that you and the commander make chart the course for our
post. I wish you wisdom and good
judgment.
As Commander of Post 639 for the past two years I have
had to made many decisions. I
have always listened to what everyone suggested and took it into
considerations. Just because some
people’s ideas were not implemented doesn’t mean that they weren’t good. There are many factors that must be taken into consideration
when a decision is made. Some
things can’t be done because of financial limitations, some because of legal
restrictions and some because of insurance, etc, etc.
During the time I served as commander I always tried to make the
decision that I thought was in the best interest of our post and our members.
I would have been able to perform my job if I hadn’t had the support
of my E-Board and many of the members. I
want to thank all of you for that support.
We went through some trying times and we have accomplished some very
good things:
1.
We have made the building payment much more manageable.
2.
We received the only inspection in the kitchen with no minor or major
violations and it is clean.
3.
We organized and had the first Post birthday party.
4.
We honored our Charter members at that party and dedicated “The
Hill” to them.
5.
We cleaned and repaired the post grounds.
6.
We started an Entertainment fund to account for and bank all the money
earned by the CD player and the
pool table.
7.
We started a tax fund account to try and save money for our taxes and
license so we could have some money to help pay for them, because we get
his so hard at the end of the year.
8.
We were able to pay off some long standing debts.
9.
We continue to give donations to American Legion Baseball.
10.
We made 100% (goal post) membership each year.
Thanks to several people, Phil included that worked very hard on the
phone.
11.
We still intend to put a patio on the East side of the building and a
committee is still studying the “beer garden” on the West side.
12.
We are working diligently to bring sail of the submarine USS Lapon to
our post.
13.
We established and set up a web site for our post and it is a very good
one. Visit it at www.post639.com.
There is more, but I just wanted to give you some
highlights of what we, myself, the E-Board and the membership have
accomplished. These were good
things, but the most important one is that we kept the post open for our
members and our community.
On June 14th American Legion National
Commander John Brieden issued a statement in response to the Supreme Court’s
rejection of atheist Michael Newton’s challenge to the Constitutionality of
teacher-led recitation of The Pledge of Allegiance because of the words
“under God”. I am going to
print parts of it. “The words
‘under God’ are a tribute to Americans Constitutionally protected
religious freedom, not a prayer. There
is nothing wrong with school children acknowledging the fact that the founders
of our republic openly stated in the writings before the pledge was even
developed that the United States is indeed ‘one nation under God’.
The American Legion will fight with all our legal and legislative might
to protect the right of school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”
Are you aware that about one-third of the adult homeless
population have served their country in the Armed Services.
On any given day as many as 250,000 veterans (male and female) are
living on the streets or in shelters and perhaps twice as many experience
homelessness at some point during the course of a year.
Right now, the number of homeless Vietnam era veterans is
greater than the number of persons who died during that war.
I won’t go into the individual statistics, but I have them for anyone
interested. The Department of
Veteran’s Affairs offers a wide variety of special programs and initiatives
specifically designed to help homeless veterans live as self sufficiently and
independently as possible. They are the only agency that provides substantial hands-on
assistance directly. If you know
of any veteran that may benefit from their assistance they can get the
information from the Department of Veterans affairs, web site at http://www.va.gov/
or from any VA office. There are
links to other veterans web sites on Post 639’s web site.
A word to the wise though, there is a group, “American Veterans”,
that is claiming to help homeless veterans.
They are calling homes and requesting credit card donations.
The president of the group is apparently Robert Friend, Jr.
If persons check their caller ID, it may read “Safety Programs –
717-234-2635.” This is a
non-working number. Robert Friend
is the president of American Veterans Coalition based in Gig Harbor, WA.
The web site with his information is http://www.american-veterans.org/OnlineRequestAssistance.html.
Another report on this group, which has several aliases, may be found
at http://www.give.org/reports/nondissql.asp?798. This is not an official VA
recognized veterans service organization.
I was proud to serve as Commander of the best American
Legion Post. Thanks all of you
for your confidence in me and for your support.
I will continue to support Post 639 and I will give all of my support
to the new commander and E-Board. I
hope that they encounter “smooth seas and following winds”.
Burman Walker
The
Veterans Voice
Page
3
From your Chaplain
We
are headed into our third month with everyone in good health.
Just a few minor aches and pains in our complaint department.
Brother Gene Beattie had some skin cancer removed and it appears to be
healing nicely.
The following is an article I read, written by Charles
Swindoll with a few minor revisions about attitude:
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of
attitude on life. Attitude, to
me, is more important than facts. It
is more important than the past, than education, than money, than
circumstances, than appearance, giftedness or skill.
It will make or break a company….a church…a home…an American
Legion Post. The remarkable thing
is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that
day. We cannot change our
past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is
our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how
I react to it. And so it is with
you and our post…we are in charge of our attitudes”.
Keep in your prayers our national
leaders, our military, the men and women over seas in harms way and our
POW’s and MIA’s.
Bob Carroll
From the Web
Please
take a few minutes if you have web access to visit your web site
at www.post639.com. If you
don’t have access, you may go on-line at the post since we have web TV
there. If you are out of
Springfield, you can get on-line at most libraries.
If anyone has any suggestions on improving the content of the web site
or comments about the web site, email me at comments@post639.com and it will
be considered. The areas that I
would like to see more participation by everyone would be “The Forum”,
“Post Everlasting” updates and memorials and stories about your
military memories. If you want to
“surf” around on our site, the best place to go is site map.
From there it is easy to go directly to the various pages.
If you haven’t visited it yet, go to the area on “Patriotism” and
check out the speeches, documents and poems.
If you have lost one of your issues of The Veterans Voice and you want
to refer back to it, we have all issues going back to December of 2003
archived on the web site. Well,
since Burman really wrote a book for his last message, I don’t have any more
room, so from the web, keep clicking.
Bill Roark
Ladies Auxiliary
On
June 19th the ladies hosted a Father’s Day dinner for the Mt.
Vernon Veterans. I want to thank
the ladies who helped to make this a great success, again.
Clark fixed a great meal for them and Peggy Baker, Katie McGowan, Paula
Fleeman, Beverly Miller and Terri Chandler served the dinners.
Mel Johnson helped in the kitchen.
Each veteran was given an Eagle Statue that they can display in their
new rooms. The Garbanzo’s were
great, as usual, and the veterans really enjoyed them.
We have changed the date on the quilt raffle.
It will be given away on Veteran’s Day in November.
Tickets are $1.00 each or 6 for $5.00.
The proceeds from this raffle will go to “Quilts with Love” to
continue their great work of sending quilts to our troops overseas.
Tickets can be purchased at the bar or from any Auxiliary member.
We at the Auxiliary would like to extend an invitation
for all members to attend our meetings. Please
come and be with us.
The dues for year 2005 will be due beginning on August 1st.
Please send renewals to Luanne Spradling, 5181 West Sunshine Lot 39,
Springfield, MO 65802 instead of the address on the renewal slips.
Membership cars for 2005 will be sent out as soon as dues are received.
Luanne Spradling
Commander Elect
It
is with great pride and honor that I accept the challenge you have set before
me as your new commander. First
and foremost I would like to thank and congratulate Burman on the outstanding
job he has done as commander for the past 2 years.
I hope to continue the progress in the manor that he has set.
I have set a few goals for myself to accomplish with the
support of our membership; I would like to see the mortgage paid off, get the
parking lot repaired and upgrade the furniture inside.
With more support from the membership this can be accomplished.
We have a birthday dance every month for all members, it’s always on
a Saturday night and not many come out. This
is only one area that support from the membership would greatly improve
comradeship and make new friends. Come
and see your Post.
Again, I look forward to serving you.
Phil Richardson
Adjutant Elect
I
will be in the office for Post Duty’s every Wednesday and Thursday from 5:00
PM to 7:00 PM. I am looking
forward to working for the post as the new adjutant.
If you have any questions, I will try my best to give you an answer.
J.C. Ponder
Bingo
Report
Well the big jackpot progressive game finally hit.
We had 380 players and the progressive winner was paid $5,500.
By popular demand of our regular players we’ve changed the
progressive game to pay out smaller jackpots, but to pay them a lot more
often. We hope this will increase the number of players each and
every week because there is a greater chance of hitting every week.
Mark Reed
Together
Then,
Together Now!!!