Ordinary World: Observance

Ordinary World
Observance
Monday, 12 Nov 2018

[Ob1] Veterans Day: Stories of Those Who Served, A collection of accounts from active duty and civilian life, through the eyes of the people who lived them.

[Ob2] 100 years on we shall remember them: Britain commemorates its WWI dead “On the 100th anniversary of the Armistice events will take place in every corner of the British Isles to commemorate the sacrifice of a generation during the First World War, which only came to an end at 11am on November 11, 1918, after an almost incalculable loss of life. The numbers still have the power to shock.Between 1914 and 1918, 886,345 UK troops were killed. Another 228,569 troops from the wider British Empire were killed, more than 74,000 of them from India.”

[Ob3] For Turkey, WWI Anniversary Evokes Memories of Defeat: “It is not only the humiliation of Istanbul’s occupation along with much of the country by French, British, Greek, and Italian forces that evokes those sentiments today. The defeat marked the end of the Ottoman Empire and the loss of vast swathes of territory to the British and French, which eventually became modern Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.
“We have many legacy issues, leftovers from the First World War still influencing Turkish politics, Turkish culture —the trauma of losing an empire,” said Guvenc.”

[Ob4] Armistice Day: How France will commemorate 100 years since the end of WWI: “Several villages were razed to the ground in the battles which led to the end of the war. These include Beaumont-en-Verdunois, Bezonvaux, Cumières-le-Mort-Homme, Fleury-devant-Douaumont; Haumont-près-Samogneux and Louvemont-Côte-du-Poivre, all of which are located in the départment of Meuse.Residents were evacuated at the start of the Battle of Verdun, which raged from February 21st to December 18th 1916, but when they returned they found that everything had been destroyed in the conflict, from houses and buildings to trees and hedges. In 1919, the land was bought by the government and it was decided that the six villages would not be rebuilt or inhabited, but would remain as memorials, each with a mayor and an annual budget to take care of the land.”

[Ob5] 100 years since the WW1 Armistice, Remembrance Day remains a powerful reminder of the cost of war: “On the first Armistice Day, November 11 1918, crowds cheered on the streets of Allied countries such as Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, France and Belgium. People rejoiced at the ending of a period of total mobilisation that had affected every aspect of their lives, inflicting unprecedented hardship on soldiers and civilians alike. But for those who had lost the war, the news of the armistice came as a shock. While some were relieved the conflict had ended, the sudden collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires provided a breeding ground for revolutionary movements and further internal conflicts. For them, Armistice Day was a moment of anguish and bitterness.”

[Ob6] A quiet respect: Veterans have camaraderie in Collier senior communities: “It’s evident in the rapt attention that veterans Gene Engel and William Woo-Lun give Page as he tells the story about the flag. As Page, a boatswain’s mate in the Navy, tried to replace the flag on his ship in the midst of the typhoon, the wind was shredding the flag, practically “beating us to pieces,” he said. The new flag was easier to hang, since it came in a package. The worn flag has 48 stars because Alaska and Hawaii had yet to be admitted to the Union.”

[Ob7] Veterans tell stories of hope and struggle at Middletown forum: ” People thank Denise Miller’s husband all the time for serving in the armed forces. And several times when she has presented her military benefit card at doctor’s offices, she’s been asked for her husband’s information.
“People don’t think of a veteran as a female,” said Miller, now a Tiverton resident, who graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1994 and served in the Air Force from 1998 to 2006. Her first deployment was to Saudi Arabia in support of Operation Southern Watch. She served in security forces and also provided intelligence support. “I’ve had people tell me that females don’t belong in the military,” she said. She has also been told she’s too young to be a veteran.”

[Ob8] Saying their names helps honor the memory of veterans at a ceremony on ASU campus

“The names seemed to float in the air across the lawn, stopping students on their way to class. A few more people slid onto the folding chairs, just 19 of them, set up in the grass.

Marshall Egbert Stewart.

George Sherman Roach.

Elton Stacey Perry.

It was a small gathering, at noon on Thursday, organized by the ASU Alumni Veterans Chapter. Hill is on the board.

Often we honor our military for Veterans Day with big gestures, like parades with color guards and marching bands on city streets and memorial ceremonies in parks and cemeteries. But we do it with small gestures, too.A community breakfast at Tempe High School. A gourd dance at Pueblo Grande Museum. Free haircuts at Great Clips. Golf tournaments and 5K runs. Free coffee at Starbucks. A complimentary donut at Dunkin’. A free Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s.And in gatherings like this annual reading of the names at ASU, a list of 137 spanning a century and getting longer every year.

Robert Ernest Lackey.

Ralph Blanchard Riggs.

Jack Tracy Trimble.

Hill read the names through World War II, the largest group lost, 72 in all, including the only woman on the list.
Tony Pearl Roomsburg.

Roomsburg was born in Phoenix and graduated in 1942 from ASU, then Arizona State Teacher’s College.

She enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps on Dec. 31, 1943. Private First Class Roomsburg served in British West Africa (the French Ivory Coast, now Ghana), and was transferring to Robert Field, Liberia, on May 30, 1945, when her transport plane went down.

The wreckage was never recovered. Roomsburg was 25.

Jim Geiser, a six-year Marine Corps veteran and the group’s volunteer historian, spent hours over five years researching her story, along with those of the other alumni veterans on the list.

Halfway through, Geiser took Hill’s place at the podium to read, starting with the Korean War.