Honoring Mississippi's Veterans

Congressman Gene Taylor addresses crowd during a Veterans Day ceremony in Gulfport.

Ceremonies were held across the state yesterday to mark Veterans Day. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports on one ceremony that took place on the Gulf Coast.

A twenty one gun salute was part of the Veterans Day ceremony held yesterday in downtown Gulfport in front of a brand new WW2 memorial. There are currently more than 212,000 veterans living in Mississippi. Jim Tholer, commander of American Legion Post 119 in Gulfport says taking time to honor veterans in this day and age is more important than ever,

"You know like during WW2 they rationed everything so people got a feeling of what people were going through, these days they see a 30 second clip on TV and they think that is the war. They don’t realize what these men and women today are going through; we are not touched personally like we should be."

Dozens of veterans from the Vietnam and Korean wars sat in chairs and listened to a list of speakers who included the commanders of many of the military installations on the coast. Brigadier General Wyman is Commander of 81st Medical Group at Keesler Airforce Base,

“Today we gather to honor veterans, the men and women who have served this nation in both war and peace. We pay tribute to those who have protected our liberty and freedom sometimes at the cost of their lives.”

Also in attendance was 4th district Congressman Gene Taylor, who has spent much of his time in congress battling for veteran’s rights. But it was not the veterans who Taylor addressed, rather a group of students who had to come take part in the ceremony,

“What I want you to do is look down at these folks sitting in these chairs, they used to look just like you. When they looked just like you they were jumping out of airplanes, they were in helicopters, they were in the skies of Vietnam.”

Taylor urged the students to not only thank the veterans, but to look at them as role models, and to consider serving the country themselves.