Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008

Veterans honored locally, worldwide

From parades in Union and Columbia to a cemetery in France, service, sacrifice lauded

UNION — Flag-waving school children sat on the curb while tan-colored Humvees and troop trucks rolled past the red-brick downtown storefronts.

The soldiers driving the military vehicles waved and smiled as spectators lining the sidewalk called out the troops’ names.

In this rural mill town of about 8,100, the annual Veterans Day parade Tuesday was a personal event.

That’s because dozens of families in the Upstate community had loved ones who served with the S.C. Army National Guard’s 218th Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan.

“This one’s special,” Staff Sgt. Marshall Adams, 61, a Union resident and member of the 218th brigade, said of the parade.

“It’s special by being home and watching the fellow soldiers participate,” Adams added. “It’s a great thing. ... We made it back.”

Local members of the 1,800-soldier unit, most of whom returned last May, were honored guests as about 2,000 people — according to a police estimate — gathered in downtown Union on a chilly, but sun-kissed morning to mark the holiday.

Besides a parade down Main Street, the event included a flyover of two fighter jets and a parachute demonstration by soldiers of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

Eugene Wilson, a Vietnam veteran from Newberry, noticed right away that the town, which is headquarters to one of the 218th’s infantry companies, takes its ties to the National Guard seriously.

Even the parade program referred to the local Guard unit as the “Union National Guard.”

“People are just more involved,” said the 58-year-old Wilson, who fought with the 1st Cavalry Division.

“You’ve got people in the National Guard leaving their homes and families. For that reason, I guess, it means something.”

But Wilson, commander of American Legion Post 219, added public support for veterans seems to be growing everywhere.

For Iraq war veteran Stephen Root, of Union, Tuesday was a day to remember “friends and buddies who I lost over there.”

The 27-year-old Union man and former Marine said the holiday also means more to him after he fought in the opening months of the Iraq war.

What he appreciates most, Root said, is the public’s support.

“Before we went over there, it seemed like no one really cared,” he said. “But everyone has been really welcoming and thankful. I was honestly very surprised about that.”

The day’s guest speaker, Sgt. Maj. Doug Gilliam, a member of the 218th and a Union resident, saluted the soldiers he served with in Afghanistan, tying their valor and service to the veterans from earlier wars who stood in the crowd.

“Great leaders, great soldiers do amazing things under intense circumstances,” said the 45-year-old Gilliam, who served on a team of S.C. Guard soldiers who mentored the Afghan army.

“These soldiers you see wearing the uniforms and these veterans that have been there before, they are the same,” Gilliam said.

Reach Crumbo at (803) 771-8503.