[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”10″ display=”basic_slideshow”]
With Nov. 11 falling on a Sunday, some ceremonies marking Veterans Day were moved to Monday, but an early-season snow storm forced their cancellation.
Many residents were still able to mark the special day at events on Sunday.
The holiday was special to many this year because 2018 was the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, the event that eventually became Veterans Day in the United States.
It was 100 years ago this year, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918, that the guns fell silent on the Western Front across France and what many believed at the time to be “the War to End all Wars,” ended.
Approximately 40 million people, about 19 million soldiers, sailors and other military service members, died in The Great War, as it was also known at the time, a blood-letting unheard of in Europe at the time.
Musical tribute
Carthaginian Dr. Mark Robinson, decked out in his Boy Scout uniform, was in front of Carthage’s Memorial Hall at the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month,” on Sunday to mark the event by playing Taps on his trumpet.
Robinson was participating in a world-wide event called Sounds of Remembrance, a part of the Centennial Celebration of the end of World War I.
More than 500 buglers from 31 states and five countries also played the mournful tones of Taps in their respective time zones.
“I didn’t get the privilege of civil service except as a Boy Scout,” Robinson said a few minutes before 11 a.m. on Sunday. “But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that’s when I began to play taps for people. I was requested by veterans to play at funerals or by the Lions Club or other civic organizations to play at commemorations or celebrations. I was honored to do it and I’m honored to do it now.”
Robinson said he was especially honored to play Taps standing in front of Carthage’s Memorial Hall, a building built in the 1920s in honor of local residents who died in World War I.
“That cease fire, (on Nov. 11, 1918) allows me to be here today and that’s what it means to me,” Robinson said. “Because of what they gave, I can do this in freedom. Because of their bloodshed, I don’t have to be concerned.”
Story of Poppies
Other Carthage Veterans met at the Powers Museum for a Flag-folding ceremony and to hear about the significance of a bright red flower, called the poppy, in World War I lore.
Dr. Rebecca Shriver, history professor at Missouri Southern State University who specializes in European history between World War I and World War II, talked about Canadian Lt. Col. John McCrae, a doctor who wrote the poem, “In Flanders Field,” in 1915 after losing a friend in battle in Ypres in Belgium.
McCrae was inspired by the sight of poppies blooming on a battlefield to write the poem.
Shriver said the poppies bloomed in dirt disturbed by the explosions of war.
She said McCrae’s poem inspired an American professor, Moina Michael, to make and sell red silk poppies and a tradition was born.
Carthage veterans, led by former Carthage VFW Post leader Jim Hammond, held a flag-folding ceremony where they described the meaning of each of the folds when the American Flag is folded into a triangle.
They also held a ceremony to honor soldiers missing in action and possibly held prisoner of war.
This traditional ceremony includes a table set for one, with a rose in a vase, a single plate with a lemon and salt, an upturned glass, and other settings.
