Veterans assemble for annual Veterans Day Powwow at Volk Field
By Ken Luchterhand
An assembly of about 100 people gathered at Volk Field on Saturday, Nov. 12, for the 39th Annual Veterans Day Powwow to honor all people who have served in this country’s military.
Keynote speaker Brigadier General Mark Anderson told the audience that Veterans Day isn’t just about yesterday’s veterans, but also about the everyday veterans, the veterans who live in our midst today.
All the veterans have raised their right hands for our liberties, he said, whether they served in combat or not. Those who served stateside or in peacetime didn’t choose their positions and did provide a service to those people who did see combat by being their support.
“But those people serving in the military are not the only ones who have made sacrifices for our country,” he said. “Spouses and families makes sacrifices when they are deprived of being with their loved ones and sharing time together.”
He knows this sacrifice personally.
“I’ve been in the service for 34 years and I couldn’t be doing any of it without the love and support from my family,” Anderson said.
Anderson said he respects the Ho-Chunk people because Native American heritage and honor is synonymous with service to the country, especially at a time when they may be putting their lives at risk.
“There’s a lot of symbolism with the reverence displayed to honor the Ho-Chunk flag,” he said. “It’s another reflection of the beauty of the culture and everything the Ho-Chunk people do.”
Amy Terbilcox, director of Badger Honor Flight, took to the podium and told the struggles she’s seen since the inception of Badger Honor Flight and how the successes have touched so many hearts.
But sometimes it is a fearful struggle for veterans.
“Some veterans have said they don’t want to see it, fearing the emotion that they have kept hidden away for so long,” she said.
Badger Honor Flight is a regional affiliate of the national Honor Flight Network. The original program began with flying World War II veterans to see the veterans memorials in Washington D.C., then expanded to Korean War veterans and now, as of Jan. 1, will include Vietnam War veterans, she said.
The Honor Flight network was cofounded by Jeff Miller, a small business owner from Hendersonville, North Carolina, and Earl Morse, a physician assistant and retired Air Force captain. Morse worked in a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Springfield, Ohio, where he saw many patients who were World War II veterans. After the National World War II Memorial in Washington was completed in 2004, he asked many of his veteran patients if they were going to see it, and most said yes.
He asked them if they'd gone to see it. Three hundred of them, and not one of them had been to it. They were never going because they could not afford it.
Morse offered to fly with two veterans to Washington to see the memorial, and after seeing them break down and cry and graciously accept the offer, he pitched his idea to a local aeroclub of 300 private pilots at a local Air Force base, proposing that the pilots would pay for the flights for the veterans to Washington and personally escort them around the city.
Eleven volunteered, and the network was formed; by 2005, a board was formed, funds were raised, and volunteers had joined. Since that time, local chapters have been formed and hundreds of veterans have participated.
Patrick Day also addresses the crowd and spoke of how his grandfather made a big impression on him about this nation and all the people in it, emphasizing “One voice, one mind.”
One day, his grandfather handed him an ear of Indian corn, then asked him what he saw. Looking at it intensely, he saw kernels of black, yellow, red, black, and white.
“It’s beautiful,” he told his grandfather.
“We are that piece of corn, and together, we’re beautiful,” his grandfather said. “People of all colors, together, living together, is a beautiful thing.”
Robert Mann spoke about the Ho-Chunk Code Talkers and how they were recognized in a special ceremony in Washington D.C., which he attended.
Following the recognition in the nation’s capital, a ceremony was held in Wisconsin Dells in December 2015 to honor the Code Talkers. A gold medal was given in honor of each recipient and a silver medal was given to each family of the Code Talker.
Recently, seven more Ho-Chunk Code Talkers were added to the list and they were recognized for their service to the country.
At the conclusion of Mann’s speech, the drum group sang the Code Talker song that was written by Andy Thundercloud Jr.
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