Remembering Heroism on Veterans Day

The story of Corporal Jason L. Dunham and his life is a short one, but is also a poignant reminder of the high costs of war. I write this on what would have been his twenty-ninth birthday (November 10). He was born in Scio, New York, a small town of 1,900 people.

While serving in Karabilah, Iraq, Dunham was manning a checkpoint on April 14, 2004, when an insurgent jumped out of a car and began attacking him. As the fight ensued two other Marines approached and the insurgent dropped a grenade, Dunham took off his Kevlar helmet, dropped to the ground and covered the explosive with his body. The blast wounded all three Marines, but Corporal Dunham died eight days later at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

On November 10, 2006 while dedicating the National Museum of the Marine Corps, President Bush announced that Dunham would receive the Medal of Honor for his actions in Iraq. He was the first Marine since the Vietnam War to receive the Medal of Honor. This week in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Navy has had festivities for an Arleigh Burke Class, Aegis Guided Missile Destroyer to be commissioned on November 13th named the USS JASON DUNHAM (DDG 109). In addition to the Navy destroyer, there is a US post office in his home town, a Marine Corps barracks in Kings Bay, Georgia, a crucible warrior’s station at Parris Island, South Carolina and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego also named in his honor. In 2005, Wall Street Journal reporter Michael M. Phillips published a book about Dunham’s life called, The Gift of Valor: A War Story. And, in 2008, Robert Ferrigno dedicated his second book in the Assassins trilogy, Sins of the Assassin, to SFC Paul Smith, Corporal Dunham and Lt. Michael Murphy.

Veterans Day

At the end of World War I, The Great War, conflict ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. So, in November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11th as Armistice Day. President Eisenhower changed the name to Veterans Day and made it a national holiday, which turned into a three-day federal holiday. But, it took President Gerald Ford in 1975 to recognize November 11th as the official day for Veterans Day no matter what day it fell on.

The beginning of the US military began with the civilian frontiersmen that formed the local militias along the wildernesses of the American colonies. In 1775, after the battles of Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress formed the Continental Army under General Washington to fight the British and form a new nation. Throughout American history, there have been many wars, but none with a greater toll than the American Civil War.

I was recently in Washington, D.C. and had an opportunity to visit the Lincoln Memorial. As I stood before the Gettysburg Address, my eyes welled and I was overcome by its powerful words, and I will always remember how honored I was to be an American.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

On Veterans Day 2010, let us not forget those great men and women who have fought in the wars of the 20th Century for this nation, and, who fight today in Iraq and Afghanistan. This week in Fort Lauderdale, we’ve been reminded of the ultimate sacrifice given to a nation as the US Navy commissions the USS JASON DUNHAM.

Tony Munoz is the Editor-in-Chief of the Maritime Executive Magazine and the MarEx Newsletter. He can be contacted at [email protected] with comments, input and questions on this editorial.