Eagle Feathers #217 – Remembering Veterans Day

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

This year, November 11 marks the 102nd anniversary of the end of World War I. Armistice Day, as it was known until 1954, was dedicated to honor the sacrifices of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and the losses they suffered during that war.

The peace treaty was signed in 1918 at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the eleventh month. The conflict was commonly called “The war to end all wars,” but it didn’t.

It was also referred to it as “The Great War,” but it wasn’t. Tragically, it was dwarfed by World War II twenty years later. Today, Veterans Day honors the memory of all veterans of all services in all wars.

Somerville’s centrally located Trum Field honors Army Corporal Richard Trum, who was sadly killed just ten days before the Armistice was signed. An abutting thoroughfare, Charles E. Ryan Road, honors another Somerville soldier killed three months earlier. The sons and daughters of this patriotic city suffered more than her small area would show.

The city has tried to remember their heroic acts by naming streets, squares, and parks after many of them. Dilboy Field, Conway Park, Foss Park, Wilson Square and Foley Street at Assembly Square just scratch the surface. They fought in all of America’s wars. They fought at Bunker Hill and bled at Gettysburg. They climbed the cliffs of Normandy and raised the flags at Iwo Jima. The number of Somerville residents who paid the supreme sacrifice since the Armistice was:

• 148 in World War I
• 417 in World War II (29 buried at sea and 88 bodies never recovered)
• 30 in the Korean War
• 33 in the Vietnam War
• 1 in Beirut, Lebanon

 What was the sacrifice? They gave their tomorrows for our todays!