Honoring those who served
In the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the guns fell silent.
On the battlefields of Europe, where war had raged for more than four years, the survivors breathed a sigh of relief.
It was over.
The War to End All Wars, it was called.1
Of course, it wasn’t that, not at all, and the toll of its carnage was staggering: more than nine million dead, more than 21 million wounded.2
And it gave rise to what today is called Veterans Day.
First proclaimed in November 1919 by President Wilson,3 Armistice Day became a national holiday by statute in 1938.4 In 1954, the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day.5
It joined the list of three-day-weekend holidays in 19686 but was returned to its original date of November 11th by statute passed in 1975, effective in 1978.7
And so, today, November 11th — Veterans Day — The Legal Genealogist joins those who pause to thank every man and woman who has ever served this nation, wearing the uniform of its military services.
So many of them from my own family.8
Among them, my brothers and sister:
Evan H. Geissler, U.S. Air Force
Diana M. Geissler McKenzie, U.S. Air Force
Frederick M. Geissler, U.S. Army
Warren H. Geissler, U.S. Air Force
William K. Geissler, U.S. Marine Corps
My mother’s siblings and first cousins:
Billy R. Cottrell, U.S. Navy
Monte B. Cottrell, U.S. Navy
David F. Cottrell, U.S. Navy and U.S. Army
Jerry L. Cottrell, U.S. Air Force
Michael V. Cottrell, U.S. Air Force
Philip Cottrell, U.S. Marine Corps, 1920-1943
Frederick Merledon Gottlieb, U.S. Army
Sam Walter “Pete” Harris, U.S. Army
Among what we call the outlaws (my mother’s brothers-in-law):
J.C. Barrett, U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force
Miller (Ray) Childress, U.S. Navy
John C. Epps, U.S. Army
Thomas T. Williams, Jr., U.S. Air Force (Reserve)
And those who went before:
Clay R. Cottrell, U.S. Army, World War I
Gilbert F. Cottrell, U.S. Army, World War I
Jesse Fore, fifer, Captain Michael Gaffney’s Company, South Carolina Militia, War of 1812
Elijah Gentry Sr., Private, 1st Regiment, Mississippi Territorial Volunteers, War of 1812
Elijah Gentry, Private, 1st Regiment, Mississippi Territorial Volunteers, War of 1812
David Baker, Corporal, 3d Virginia Regiment, Continental Line
William Noel Battles, Private, 10th Virginia Regiment, Continental Line
John Pettypool, 1771, Militia, Granville County, NC
William Pettypool, 1701-02, Militia, Charles City County (Va.) Dragoons
Nicholas Gentry, cir 1680, Militia, Mattapony (Va.) Garrison
SOURCES
Image: “PEACE,” Guthrie (Okla.) Daily Leader, 11 Nov 1918, p.1; digital images, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ : accessed 10 Nov 2016).
- See Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), “The war to end war,” rev. 5 Nov 2016. ↩
- “World War I,” History.com (http://www.history.com : accessed 10 Nov 2016). ↩
- “Armistice Day,” WWPL Blog, posted 11 Nov 2011, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum (http://wwplblog.wordpress.com : accessed 10 Nov 2016). ↩
- “AN ACT Making the 11th day of November in each year a legal holiday,” 52 Stat. 351 (13 May 1938). ↩
- “An Act To honor veterans on the 11th day of November of each year, a day dedicated to world peace,” 68 Stat. 168 (1 Jun 1954). ↩
- “An Act To provide for uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays, and for other purposes,” 82 Stat. 250 ( 27 Jun 1968). ↩
- “An Act To redesignate November 11 of each year as Veterans Day and to make such day a legal public holiday,” 89 Stat. 479 (18 Sep 1975). ↩
- The list would be longer if I included those who wore a particular shade of grey… and, with apologies, I don’t have room in one blog post to even begin to list the cousins! ↩
And for two of yours as well as myself, yesterday was also a time to celebrate – the birthday of the USMC. Sempr Fi
You need to read yesterday’s post too then… 🙂
John D Reid, in today’s issue of “Canada’s Anglo-Celtic Connections,” alerted readers to a video posted today from the Genetic Genealogy Ireland 2016 conference
The film focused on efforts to use a combination of forensics, traditional genealogy, and DNA evidence to identify appr. 250 sets of WWI soldiers’ remains that had recently been found in an unmarked mass grave at Fromelles. It was the statistics that were the real shocker: how many dead, how many missing and never found. Unbelievably, a full century later the remains of WWI MIAs are still coming to light.
What’s really unbelievable is how many more there are to be found…