Remembering All Veterans

Many of my girlfriends in the early 1970’s wore a silver bracelet engraved with the name of a soldier who was either MIA or a POW in the Vietnam War. The intent of the bracelet’s wear was to personalize a highly unpopular war—one soldier at a time.  By seeing a name, one could connect to the humanity rather than the politics of the Indochina conflict.

Andersonville is in the state of Georgia—26 acres of swampland. In 1864 the Confederacy chose to fence the land in and create a POW camp for Union soldiers. It was called Fort Sumter. The camp was built to house no more than 10,000 prisoners. But at its peak, the population swelled to 45,000 men.

The living conditions were appalling. Confederate soldiers picked off Union prisoners by gunfire for fun. There was no shelter, no clothing, no fresh water, no sanitation, and rations of food were more meager than those of the Japanese POW camps during World War II.  13,000 men--40% of all the Union soldiers who died in the Civil War fighting in the South—met their demise in Andersonville. The fatalities were due to exposure, malnutrition, starvation, scurvy, dysentery, typhus and malaria.

At the war’s end, Henry Wirz, the superintendent of the camp, was convicted and hanged for war crimes.

The POWs in Andersonville survived or died in a hellhole on American soil for a noble cause. They, like all Union soldiers, understood that a divided house could not stand. They understood that federal law trumped that of the states. They accepted that all men were created equal. Their resolve was that no man may own another.

And so, all Union soldiers must be honored for their sacrifice—because they, as much any other soldier of the 20^th and 21^st century, secured our freedom and protected our Constitution. The veterans of the North are the reason we are the United States of America.

And when the Vietnam War ended I remember that the man whose name was engraved on Patty Storm’s bracelet came home. He had survived the Hanoi Hilton—the most notorious POW camp of that war. The man whose name was on Cathy Schmitt’s bracelet was not as lucky. He remained MIA.

On Veteran’s Day it is our duty to remember those who protect and have protected our homeland on both domestic and foreign soil. Because it is their dedication that ensures that a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.