[Editor’s note: Craftsbury’s Memorial Day observances began with a service, Friday, May 22, at 9 a.m., that began with music in the Craftsbury Academy gym. Greensboro Select Board member and former state senator, Mike Metcalf, shared thoughts about his own and his son’s military service, with a local connection.
A procession then followed to North Craftsbury Cemetery, where flowers donated by the community were placed on veterans’ graves. The service concluded with the laying of a wreath at the Veterans’ Memorial on the Common. Afterward cookies were shared with those in attendance.
Metcalf’s remarks follow.]
CRAFTSBURY – This is the 161st Memorial Day; a practice started in Waterloo, N.Y., in 1866, to honor the memories of so many young men who had recently given their lives in America’s Civil War. Veterans of both the Grand Army of the Republic and the Armies of the Confederacy have now been recognized North and South for more than a century and a half. Veterans groups and families decorate the graves of veterans of every American war.
For years recognition was scheduled on May 30. In 1968 the Congress designated the last Monday in May as the date for Memorial Day. To include members of the school-aged generation in the recognition, and since the Monday holiday means there is no school on Monday, at the Academy we are recognizing veterans today. Armed Forces Day, earlier in May, and Veterans’ Day in November are two other opportunities to recognize the sacrifice of so many who have kept alive the dream of our quarter-millennium experiment in democracy.
A recent book by Admiral William McRaven, “Duty, Honor, Country & Life,” recounts much of what the history of this American experiment in democracy is all about.
His final chapter starts with: “In the past 250 years, there has been tremendous change in America. We have grown from three-million people in 1776 to over 330 million today, from thirteen states to fifty. Manifest Destiny drove us west expanding American territory through acquisition and war. Initially an agrarian society, we moved through the Industrial Age into the age of technology and globalization. A civil war freed the slaves, and societal changes expanded voting rights for everyone. We brought electricity to the people and mass produced the automobile, the airplane and the telephone. We fought two world wars and a dozen other conflicts. We put men on the moon, built the internet, conquered crippling diseases and fed the world. But for all the political, economic, and societal changes, America is best known for what didn’t change: the American spirit.”
There is a connection between this celebration and our history. So many of the advances brought forth in the U.S.A. have been made possible by the service and sacrifice of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. This we recognize today, and this weekend several hundred graves of veterans are decorated in final resting places across the Northeast Kingdom. All of us are here in part because service to America deserves our thanks.
I have a very personal reason for adding my family to the list of grateful celebrants. On Thursday, August 5, 2004, at 6 a.m. the phone rang at our home in Greensboro. Our Green Beret younger son, Keyes, (on his first of four tours in ‘the sandbox’) said, “Mom, I wouldn’t call except the Army’s going to call later to make sure I talked to you.”
“What happened?”
I got shot in the head. I’m fine. I have a pretty good headache; a stitch; the helmet saved my life.”
Keyes is laconic, not one for idle chit-chat, so the call was brief. Though we learned some details about the injury, we would wait until Christmastime to fill in a lot of the pixels about what happened and how he was protected.
The firefight took place in eastern Mosul, “up north” as our sons called it. Keyes and his A-team were working with an Iraqi battalion defending the city’s northernmost bridge across the Tigris River. The round entered Keyes’ Advanced Combat Helmet at the back left of his head. The force of the shot partially delaminated the Kevlar as it moved forward, cutting into his left temple, leaving him black and blue, a bit bloodied, and in need of minor medical attention and Ibuprofen. The round would have gone clean through a steel helmet from WWII or Vietnam.
During the fall, we learned more about this helmet: made of many layers of Kevlar fabric, forced together under tons of pressure. Remarkably, the firm whose helmet saved our son’s life is located here in Newport, in the Essex-Orleans District which I represented for a few years in the Vermont State Senate.
On the last day before the company’s Christmas break, Keyes (home on leave), my wife Mary and I visited them to thank them for saving the life of a Vermont Green Beret. After showing off the process by which the helmets are built and guiding a tour of the plant, Rudy Chase, a leader of the team manufacturing the helmet, who lives on the Creek Road in Craftsbury, asked Keyes if he still had the helmet.
“Yes, it’s back at Fort Campbell.”
“When you get back to Campbell, would you pull back a small tab, inside, center top, and send us the serial number?”
At the new year, back in Kentucky, Keyes sent us a photo of the serial number as part of an e-mail. I forwarded the photo to MSA Industries where they were able to thank the exact crew that made the helmet that had saved his life.
Our young men and women on the front lines are getting the very best protection the nation can provide, produced by people who care in a state we all value. I want to express my personal thanks to each and every individual whose work ethic and focus helped to save Keyes’ life and the lives of countless others.
A few years ago, there were 1.5 million men and women on active duty in the armed forces. Their average age was 24½. Another 1.7 million served in the reserves and the national guard. Fifty-one percent of active duty personnel are married. They have 1.9 million spouses and dependent children. They come from every American state and 80 foreign countries. For many people around the world, the most direct route to American citizenship is service in America’s military.
The sacrifice offered by active-duty service personnel is but part of the reason that the United States experiment in democracy has lasted for a quarter of a millennium. The workers at MSA industries in Newport whose helmet saved our son’s life are also part of that story. We were pleased to see the process, guided by a resident of our neighboring town, when we visited the facility 22 years ago.
In 2012, there was a message on the answering device at Hazen Union School informing me that Revision, a company in Colchester, had purchased MSA Industries and inviting me to a ‘change of command’ ceremony at the plant in Newport. My first thought was that they had an old list of state legislators because I was no longer in the state senate. Three days of phone tag told me that they wanted me to tell the story of how their helmet had saved our son’s life.
U.S. Senator Leahy, Vermont Governor Shumlin and I were the three outside speakers along with Revision CEO Jonathan Blanshay. When I got home, I e-mailed a script of my remarks to Keyes, who responded within minutes. “Dad, you missed something.”
“What was that?”
“Well, you know I didn’t own a camera. I went next door to borrow one. That’s where and when I met Kristen.” She is now his wife and mother of two of Mary’s and my four grandchildren. As did our sons, Kristen went through college partly on a ROTC scholarship and was also in Iraq at the same time as both our sons.
It is up to us to renew our dedication to the ideals of the American nation: “E pluribus unum: From many, one,” a motto that accepts our differences in religions, ethnic origins, views, politics and told the world that we could be united in our common beliefs, principles and values.
Keeping our democracy alive past 250 years will not be easy. It will require courage, compassion, and a willingness to bridge the divide we see growing in our public discourse.
This we owe as a debt to the many who have sacrificed to bring America to 2026.
Thank you!
