More than a century ago, Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Due to treaties between different factions, the world was soon plunged into what came to be known as The War to End All Wars.
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TORRINGTON – More than a century ago, Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Due to treaties between different factions, the world was soon plunged into what came to be known as The War to End All Wars.
That Great War ended 100 years ago this week. What started one year later as Armistice Day, commemorating those peace accords and the soldiers who died fighting to make them reality, became the memorial holiday we celebrate today as Veterans Day in 1938.
Like many holidays today, Veterans Day for some has become a day of special pricing on everything cars to furniture. Others see it as a day off from school or work, just another of the many observances and commemorations in a lengthy calendar of celebrations.
Not so for the near-capacity crowd Monday in the Fine Arts Auditorium on the Eastern Wyoming College campus in Torrington. And definitely not so for retired Air Force Major Louis Russ, guest speaker for the annual Veterans Day Commemoration, hosted by the college.
Russ, of Torrington, enlisted in the Air Force in 1976, near the end of the Vietnam era. Married, Russ had avoided the draft but still had a desire to serve.
The EWC alumi referenced President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which spoke to “the last full measure of devotion” given by soldiers every day.
“What does Veterans Day mean to me?” Russ asked the crowd. “The freedom to decide what kind of lives we lead. Freedom of speech, and assembly, and to worship how we feel.
“More than 100 years ago, the War to End All Wars ended when the peace treaty was signed,” he said. “Since then, 626,000 Americans have given their lives so we can live in a free country.”
The event also featured musical presentations from the EWC Master Chorus and letters from U.S. Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso.
“America is a country founded on freedom,” Enzi wrote in the letter read by representative Dianne Kirkbride. “Today, we express our gratitude to veterans. The world is a much better place because of our fallen heroes.”
Barrasso echoed those thoughts in his letter, read by Travers, thanking “all those who’ve served to protect our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
After readings of poems They Did Their Share, presented by Torrington High School student Quentin Meyer, and Freedom is Not Free, read by Lingle-Fort Laramie students Noah and Gabriel Garcia, the crowd shared a moment of silence. The annual celebration concluded with the haunting strains of “Taps,” played by a lone trumpet.
