The Cook County High School gym was filled with community members on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 for a special band concert honoring our nation’s veterans. Veterans were asked to stand when the theme song of their military branch was played.
A large contingent of local veterans assembled with Cook County Schools student body and staff for a Veterans Day concert by the Cook County High School band Wednesday, November 11, 2009.
“It is our responsibility as citizens to say thank you to our veterans,” Principal Gwen Carman said before the music began.
Pastor Mark Ditmanson, who emceed the event, stated that Veterans Day was originally called Armistice Day, instituted by President Woodrow Wilson in honor of World War I veterans. He read a portion of President Abraham Lincoln’s November 19, 1863 Gettysburg Address: “…We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Starting off the concert was Shelby Anderson singing the National Anthem
accompanied by the CCHS band.
The American Legion color guard was present at the CCHS Veterans Day concert Wednesday, November 11, 2009. (L-R) Dave Asproth, Bob Mattson, James Ford, Orvis Lunke, and Commander Don Wilson.
Guest speaker was Cook County Veteran’s Services Officer Richard McKenzie. In preparing his speech, he researched various answers people had given when asked, “What is a veteran?” One seven-year-old said, “It’s someone who wears a funny hat and sometimes walks in a parade with their friends.”
Older students said a veteran is someone who “is or was a professional, an expert, qualified, mature, practiced, hardened, dependable, proficient, and trained.”
McKenzie’s dictionary defined a veteran as “an experienced person, one who has been through many battles, someone who has given long service, someone rendered competent through trial and experience.”
According to McKenzie, a commonly used definition of a veteran is “someone who at one point in their life, wrote a blank check payable to the United States of America for an amount…up to and including the cost of their life.
“…Veterans paid the price for freedom so everybody does not have to,” McKenzie continued.
McKenzie told a story of a Civil War soldier who risked his life retrieving a wounded man from the battle. Upon getting him to safety behind the Union line, he realized the young man was dead. He also realized he was a Confederate soldier, and he realized the soldier was his son. His son had moved to the South to study music. Commanding officersrefused to allow a military burial for the enemy soldier, but one song was allowed at his battlefield funeral. The song was taken from a scrap of paper on which the young soldier had written notes that would someday become known as Taps.
It was played by a bugler and is now played at every U.S. military funeral.
After McKenzie’s speech, Kale Boomer played Taps
on his trumpet. The concert included other songs, but the last one was a medley of the theme songs of all the branches of the U.S. military. Veterans were asked to stand when the theme from their branch was played. Everyone in attendance applauded as each group stood, and tears were shed throughout the gymnasium.
The event was initiated by CCHS band director Bill Tormondsen.
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