Traveling the Highways & Byways with Bill Graves

Veterans Day is celebrated more widely in our

the sacrifice veterans of all wars have made for our country now than it was, say, a decade ago. It’s a day that seems to involve all of us, not just veterans and those close to them. It’s because of this new generation of soldiers, sailors and Marines, who serve, many based far from our shores, remnants of earlier wars. In their quiet and modest way, they have raised our awareness of security and our freedom. And these new vets, from our wars in the Middle East, have sensitized our appreciation and maybe even our guilt. We now realize that these young men and women – only one percent of the population –and their families, have carried the full load of our wars for the recent past. Unlike World War II, when we all contributed to winning it, these modern wars ask very little of the rest of us. And to our credit, we are now expressing our gratitude.

“Thank you for your service.” That's a piece of verbal sentiment that is new to the vernacular of our society. I hear it often and say it myself when I meet a person in uniform or a person who once wore one. When did we start doing that? I don’t know.

But I can tell you when we didn’t do it: when our guys came back from Vietnam. Thankfully, we have worked through that and now are trying to make up for it.

Veterans Day is observed on November 11th. It was initially called Armistice Day, and still is in many countries of the world. It marked the end of World War I that ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

On Veterans Day I am at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas. Along with families, assembled here in the museum’s Memorial Courtyard, are veterans of all our wars since 1941. A color guard opened the ceremony here at precisely 11am.

This courtyard, part of this six-acre museum complex, is surrounded by limestone walls that bear plaques honoring individuals, ships and units that fought in the Pacific – 1941 to 1945.

Other WWII museums in the U.S., including Guam, cover the war in the Pacific, but none in such detail. Here they had a head start. They began collecting artifacts in the 1960s and recording interviews with those who fought in the Pacific.

The museum covers not just the history of the Pacific War, but American and Japanese culture of the time.

The reason that it is in the hill country of Texas is because Fredericksburg is the boyhood home of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet during WWII.

Shortly before his death is 1966, Admiral Nimitz was approached by a local group to build a museum here in his honor. The site would be the landmark Nimitz Hotel built by his grandfather in 1852. The Admiral said that he would approve the request, but only if the museum was dedicated to all those who served with him in the Pacific.

And so it came to be: the Nimitz Museum was in the hotel for 10 years. But in 1999 former President George H.W. Bush, himself a Navy pilot in the Pacific War, cut the ribbon to the Bush Gallery, opening the National Museum of the Pacific War. With 60,000 square feet of building space, it is the only one like it in the world.

About the author: After seeing much of the world as a career naval officer, Bill Graves decided, after he retired, to take a closer look at the United States. He has been roaming the country for 20 years, much of it in a motorhome with his dog Rusty. He lives in Rancho Palos Verdes, California and is the author of On the Back Roads, Discovering Small Towns of America.

He can be reached at Roadscribe@aol.com.