Local News

Veterans Day

Photos

Gary Pinnell | Highlands Today
Published: November 13, 2012

SEBRING - From city to shining city, veterans were shown appreciation for their service on Monday with a parade in their honor, speeches and a ceremony on the Highlands County Courthouse lawn.

The march down Ridgewood Drive, around Circle Park and the courthouse on Commerce Avenue started with veterans on 20 motorcycles, followed by a fire engine, JROTC cadets and band members from Avon Park to Sebring to Lake Placid playing "America the Beautiful," plus Shriners, an Army Jeep, and veterans from Tanglewood and the Palms.

The high school bands joined to play the national anthem.

"Having those three bands together was exceptional," said acting county Veterans Service Officer Jackie Graham, who led the ceremony, along with retired marine Master Sgt. Gerry Harvey.

After he led the invocation, Graham gave a coin to Cadet Brett Bennett, an honor which conveys special feelings between grantor and grantee.

"May you be our veteran of the future," said Graham, an Army veteran herself.

At Monday's ceremony, Willis Robinson, 92, a World War II Army veteran who fought at Normandy, was recognized, along a 100-year-old veteran.

The crowd of more than 100 listened as Cadet Jose Heredia, a Lake Placid High School JROTC student, told "enjoying" boot camp this summer. Next summer, he said, he will become a full fledged National Guard soldier.

Cadet Joshua Montero, who is destined for the Air Force, talked about veterans of the future, and Cadet Brittany Day told the history of Veterans Day, which started out as a Great War ceasefire on Armistice Day, the 11th hour Nov. 11, 1918.

"They are our future," Graham said. "Some have already chosen to enlist. Some will say later: I want that brotherhood, I want that sisterhood. Because that's what it is."

Congress officially honored the date in 1926. The first Veterans Day, celebrating the service of all soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, National Guard and Coast Guard men and women, occurred in Birmingham, Ala. in 1947. In 1954, Congress morphed Armistice Day to Veterans Day.

gpinnell@highlandstoday.com (863) 386-5828