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Veterans' service to be honored by school system
In recognition of the sacrifices made by those who fought in World War II, Jackson County
school officials tonight (Thursday) will grant diplomas to 18 veterans who left school before their graduation in order to actively participate in the war.
It promises to be a night to remember, and it would be a special occasion on any night of the year. But it seems even more appropriate that Superintendent Sue Nations and her staff have chosen Veterans Day – the national holiday set aside to honor the servicemen of all wars – for these commencement exercises.
Scheduled six decades after the 18 would have graduated from Webster, Sylva and Cullowhee high schools, the veterans' graduation ceremony will feature participation by county schoolchildren, giving today's students a firsthand look at real-life heroes who walked away from their studies to get on with the business of saving their country.
First titled Armistice Day, Nov. 11 marks the day in 1918 when Germany and the Allies signed the armistice that brought World War I to an end after four years of combat. Though President Woodrow Wilson issued an Armistice Day proclamation in November 1919, Congress did not pass legislation designating it a holiday until 1938, saying that Nov. 11 "would be dedicated to world peace" and known as Armistice Day.
Just a month more than three years later, the United States found itself embroiled in another global conflict with another generation of its young men fighting and dying in battlefields a long way from home.
In the wake of WWII, the country found that most veterans did not feel a connection to WWI. To reflect that, Congress in 1954 changed the name of Armistice (which simply means a truce) Day to Veterans Day.
The Veterans Day graduation is one way of expressing respect and appreciation for the sacrifices of local veterans, Nations said last week.
"I wanted to have a ceremony to thank them publicly and give them the graduation they never had," she said. "Someone once said that if you feel gratitude and don't express it, it's like wrapping up a present and not giving it.' It pleases me to have this opportunity to say 'thank you' in a public ceremony."
And it seems that it's pleasing the octogenarian graduates – and their families – as well.
"I'm thrilled," said Sylva's R.O. Vance Tuesday. "And my children are thrilled, too."
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