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 Though it wasn’t that, not at all, 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 claimed 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, Virginia 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,” Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune, p.1; digital images, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ : accessed 11 Nov 2015).
- See Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), “The war to end war,” rev. 29 Oct 2015. ↩
- “World War I,” History.com (http://www.history.com : accessed 11 Nov 2015). ↩
- “Armistice Day,” WWPL Blog, posted 11 Nov 2011, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum (http://wwplblog.wordpress.com : accessed 10 Nov 2013). ↩
- “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! ↩
Judy, thank you so much for this! I’m always a little sad on Veterans’ Day because, late in his life, my father told me that he was embarrassed to say that he had never served in the military because he wasn’t called up. I told him that I didn’t think he had any reason to feel that way because he had signed up and he didn’t make the decisions about who was called. By 1940 he was 33, and he had his widowed mother who would have been in her late 70’s and an unmarried sister who was several years older than he, as well as a wife, and a farm with only himself to run it. By mid-1941, he had a female child (me) and by 1945, he had added two more daughters. I believe that they were growing cotton and cattle on the farm at that time so that should have been of some use to the country in its small way. His only brother who grew to adulthood was in WWII, as well (I think) as some brothers-in-law. This post reminds me that I need to do a little work on that. It, of course, also brings up a question—Are there any records that show why people weren’t called up? I don’t think my dad ever got a letter, but just wasn’t called up!
I know the draft registration materials are available from the National Archives, but have been told that there are no records of why someone was or wasn’t called up, or why someone was classified one thing rather than another.