BY JERRIE WHITELEY

HERALD DEMOCRAT

A choir of people who had never practiced together raised their voices in unison Wednesday to sing quietly together the national anthem as they celebrated Veterans Day.

Some arrived in wheelchairs dressed in civilian clothes while others walked in with stick-straight posture decked out in full military regalia. Either way, many of the veterans who attended services set up in their honor Wednesday said they came to remember those who didn't come home. And this year, they came to remember the people who died last week at Fort Hood.

U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas had words of praise for those who died in service to their country and words of reprimand for those who "want to wear our uniform and then turn against our country." The apparent reference to Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan, the man alleged to have killed 13 people and injured 30 others at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Nov. 5, drew head nods and quiet agreements from the crowd in Sherman.

Hall said he doesn't think foreigners who come into the U.S., join its military and then take up arms against that military should be offered the same constitutional protections that Americans enjoy. More heads nodded and more of the people who fought for that military all over the world quietly agreed.

Hall never called Hasan by name and many of the people who spoke at the ceremony never mentioned him at all.

"Maybe today will shed more light on it," was all Bill Howell, a World War II vet said about the Fort Hood shooting when noting that he didn't think the tragedy would overshadow Veterans Day activities.

Most of the retired service men and women who attended the event said they don't think of the day as a time to celebrate their own service. It is a day to remember those who served alongside them and didn't come home.

That was the way Charlie Brown put it as he stood waiting for a parade of military vehicles to form. Dressed in full uniform with brightly shined shoes, the 78-year-old said he thinks about what the day would mean to the 18 and 19-year-olds who served with him way back when and didn't get to celebrate alongside him for these past decades.

"Today is for them," he said, adding that people in their late teens today should be thankful for the people who served with him in Korea. Without their service, Brown said, many of the things that today's young people take for granted might not exist because they are made in a part of the world that might not have prospered without the efforts of American servicemen.

Buddy Cole of Sherman served in the Navy from 1943 to 1946 and said he thinks young people today forget what Veterans Day is all about. He said just looking around at the event Wednesday would show anyone that young people don't know enough about the day to know its significance. Of course, youngsters were in school.

Howell, who served in World War II, said school children should get the day off to allow them to take part in Veterans Day activities.

"It is a national holiday," Howell noted.

Just down the road a bit from where Howell and Cole sat, students at Fairview Elementary School did take some time out of class to watch the parade of military vehicles loaded with veterans make its way to the ceremony.

Howell said when he was a kid, he went to Veterans Day services.

"I was proud to be an American," he said. "They (kids today) don't feel proud."

Howell said he and his fellow servicemen thought they were really fighting for freedom back then.

"And we were and we won," he noted in a voice filled with pride.

Grayson County Judge Drue Bynum's voice also resonated with pride as he talked about the things that all veterans have in common. He said whenever those who have served in the military gather, they always talk about the same things. They discuss the superior officers who were too hard on them and the fact that they ended up loving those hard-driving leaders all the same. He said they all talk about the awful food and the sleepless nights.

Bynum said he recently returned from a trip to Iraq and he could tell by talking to the people serving over there that they will talk about those same things years from now when they gather together. Seeing those young men and women serving so far away and in so much danger, Bynum said, made this war real to him.

Bynum said the men and women he met there are "to the man, proud to be there."