Without fail, every Memorial Day and Veterans Day, White Hall holds a ceremony to honor those who have fallen in combat and those fallen or living who have served or who are serving.
It’s not fancy and doesn’t have to be. The folks who run the White Hall Museum pull it together. There’s a big red-and-white-striped tent, chairs, a podium, with red, white and blue bunting attached.
At one end, there’s the Pine Bluff Community Band, an unassuming group of talented musicians who faithfully come together to practice and then to add that special oomph to any occasion.
Then there are the speakers. On the Memorial Day observance, one or more will stand and tell the story of how they lost a loved one in combat and how that loss still stings.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
On Veterans Day, observed just this past Monday, there are also elected officials – David Beck, a council member in White Hall – as well as Glen Minor, commander of the American Legion Post in White Hall, and of course Col. Collin Keenan, commander of the Pine Bluff Arsenal who looks like he came right out of central casting for a member of the military brass – fit, sharply dressed, a quick smile and a resume a mile long that includes the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
It’s rather informal. There are asides and laughs. In closing, Minor got a little tongue-twisted and came near to wishing everyone a happy Valentine’s Day instead of Veterans Day. Beck said something along the lines of “Well, we’re told to love our veterans, so happy Valentine’s Day to you, Glen.”
All that aside, the moments taken by the brief ceremonies are real. The tears are real for those lost as are the heartfelt appreciations offered to those who served. For White Hall and for communities all across America, it is a just-a-second moment, a pause of half an hour or so to say this day is special because these people are special.
Americans disagree on a lot of things, especially these days. But those disagreements fall by the wayside when these ceremonies are held.
And indeed those connections to our military past are shared with those in other parts of the world. This newspaper received an email Monday from a man in southern England who, with his daughter, had stopped by a memorial marker that had been placed to honor the memory of a 10-person American bomber crew that died in 1944 when their plane crashed in the low clouds and hilly terrain near his home. The pilot of the crew was a first lieutenant from Pine Bluff.
The man said both his grandfathers had served in WWII and he was proud of them, and he also appreciated the military personnel who came from the United States to defend his home, some never to return. The man said he nearly always thinks about the men’s sacrifice when he walks by the site, and on Monday, Remembrance Day for the UK, he and his daughter placed flowers at the marker.
In the end, memories are all we have. That man is imprinting on his young daughter the importance of not forgetting the impacts of war. White Hall, thousands of miles away, does the same.