Veterans Day address

Sunset Service, fantail of the USS Missouri

4:45 pm, November 11, 2008

By James D. Hornfischer

On Veterans Day, unlike on Memorial Day, we celebrate and thank all those who serve and have served our nation through their military service.

In history, today, November 11th, marks the signing of the Armistice ending World War I. President Wilson established that day in 1919 to thank the young men who had helped to win that war.

Thirty-five years went by before this date was given its present purpose and scope. The idea of broadening the holiday, to thank all of our veterans, started with a Kansas shoestore owner, a civilian. Al King had been too young to serve in WWI, but he understood what was given by those who served. He began to talk to friends and neighbors about his idea of establishing a special day for all military veterans.

King was so vocal and passionate about his idea that his local Chamber of Commerce got involved. With the help of his Congressman, a bill got passed. And in 1954, President Eisenhower signed it into law. And so we are here today.

From those ordinary beginnings, to this majestic place- the Mighty Mo, the USS Missouri, BB-63.

It has been 63 years since the leaders of wartime Japan gathered up forward on the weather deck as Admiral Nimitz and the other Allied leaders accepted the unconditional surrender of a great and formidable enemy.

It has been 55 years since the Korean War ended-33 since American troops evacuated Saigon-17 years since an Iraqi tyrant invaded his neighbor and was turned back by Americans and a coalition of allies.

And it's been just 7 years since a frightful new war began against the ruthless agents of worldwide terror.

This awesome ship was in service for the majority of that time. She first arrived at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve Day, 1944, after her shakedown and final fitting out. She put to sea a month later with Admiral Mitscher's Task Force 58. Within weeks that mighty flotilla of aircraft carriers was striking at the Japanese mainland, the first such strikes since the famed Doolittle Raid of 1942. Later, as Admiral Halsey's flagship, the Missouri spent almost three months in continuous operations in support of the Okinawa Invasion and preparations for the invasion of Japan.

We look at this ship, at her smoothly engineered might and grace, at her great longevity, and we see all that is right with our Armed Forces.

As she entered Tokyo Bay in September 1945, her teak decks served as Japan's field of surrender. The flag that flew from the Missouri's mainmast truck spoke for all those who fought in that war.

She fought on behalf of all of them, and represented all of them. There are many men who served in that war, among them a small group, from the USS Houston, the fabled "Ship of Ghosts," which was sunk early on and who spent the rest of the war as slaves of Imperial Japan. Like the rest of their brothers in arms, these men signed on for whatever war might deal them. As Mrs. Val Poss, the president of the USS Houston and USS Houston Next Generations Association, said today, these men, in dedicating themselves to military service, "Wrote our nation a blank check, for an amount up to and including their own lives."

The grim business of war has been a constant in history. War persists, despite our best efforts to avoid it. Our wars remind us both of our species' great strengths, and its enduring weaknesses. It has been through ordinary human failings of judgment and pride that so many wars have been necessary. But it has also been through an irreducible strength and steadfastness that our men and women have found it within themselves to fight when it would have been far easier not to. To fight when it cost them more than it gained them. To fight when the cause was larger than any one person's own well-being.

In wartime, it seems to me, it is almost always an accident of circumstance that determines whether one man or woman will have the opportunity to stand out as what we civilians like call "a hero." When Lieutenant Commander Robert Copeland, the captain of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts, spoke to his crew over the ship's intercom while steaming into battle in the Philippine Sea in October 1944, he said:

"This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can." It sounds heroic, but anyone will tell you: He was doing what any destroyer officer was trained to do in the same situation. And the men, carrying out their own duties under these accidental circumstances of the Battle off SAM-ar, were hardly unique in the Navy in World War II. Which ship, and which crew, got the call was an accident of circumstance.

So too with our uniformed men and women today. They don't know what fate has in store for them. But we all know that the nature and severity of the challenges awaiting them in this dangerous world have never been greater.

Since 1776, more than 42 million people have served in our armed forces. Today it is a small professionalized force that stands up for the rest of us. Some serve in geographic places, and in technical capacities, that their forerunners would never have imagined.

We thank them for their service.

Those who have worn the insignia of the USA-our grandfathers, our moms and dads, our brothers and sisters and friends and neighbors, our forefathers dating back to the colonists' rebellion against King George the Third-all of them are the strong arm, and the helpful, serving hand, of a nation unlike any other in history.

We thank you. We thank you.

James D. Hornfischer is the author of two works of World War II naval history: The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour and Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR’s Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors. His next book will cover the pivotal naval campaign for Guadalcanal, from August to December 1942, also to be published by Bantam.

Hornfischer’s writing career has grown out of a lifelong interest in the Pacific war. He has appeared on television on The History Channel, Fox News Channel’s “War Stories with Oliver North” and C-SPAN’s “BookTV.” A frequent speaker on the subject of the war in the Pacific, the U.S. Navy, and the experience of America’s sailors in World War II, he frequently addresses veterans organizations, youth and civic groups, and professional naval organizations on the inspiring stories found in his books.

A native of Massachusetts, and a graduate of Colgate University and the University of Texas School of Law, Hornfischer is a member of the Naval Order of the United States and the Navy League of the United States. A former New York book editor, Hornfischer is president of Hornfischer Literary Management, a literary agency in Austin, Texas.