Honor to Whom Honor–with Joy

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On Sunday afternoon, the parking lot was packed when Ray dropped Mother and me off at the meeting room where we sometimes attend the Little Opry. A man in a VFW hat stood at the door handing out American flags.

Flag 2 001 Cropped
My Flag

We walked past the high school band in the back of the room. As Ray and Mother got settled in on the row with Mary Evelyn and her family, I hurried to the front row to get a photo of Miss Joy. She and her caregiver sat waiting until time for Miss Joy to perform her annual part in the Veterans Day ceremony.

Miss Joy
Miss Joy as Uncle Sam

Veterans and we who honored them listened as the band played “Stars and Stripes Forever.” We stood at attention for the posting of the colors. A young male soloist sang the National Anthem.

The audience was ready to sit down after the first verse, but the young man surprised us by singing verse four. I shared that verse with you when Mary Evelyn and her family and Ray, Mother, and I heard it on the 4th of July, but here it is again:

O thus be it e’er when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The audience joined in a beautifully-led prayer just before Miss Joy’s performance. Less than one month before her 100th birthday on December 4, Miss Joy enthusiastically recited from memory “The Ragged Old Flag.” A standing ovation followed.

Clara Wesley and Miss Joy 101 Cropped
“The Ragged Old Flag”

The Jackson County High School Band played a salute to the armed forces before we heard brief remarks from our County Mayor, our City Mayor, our State Representative, and our local Veterans Service Officer.

A representative from the Tennessee Department of Veterans Affairs gave the keynote. She asked veterans from various eras to stand. Veterans were there from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and each of the U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, spanning the last twenty-three years beginning with Operation Desert Storm. This veteran of the Koren War sat a few rows in front of us.

Veteran
An Honored Veteran

The band closed the program with “Taps.”

As I sat in the audience with four generations of my family on one row, I remembered our own veterans who have gone on before us, my daddy Charles Leland Boyd who served on the home front during the Korean War and Ray’s dad who served on the home front and in Europe during World War II. How I loved and how I miss both of them.

Render to all what is due them:
Tax to whom tax is due;
custom to whom custom;
fear to whom fear;
honor to whom honor.
Romans 13:7

 

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