By Bill Robinson
Senior News Writer
RICHMOND —
More than 150 people attended a Memorial Day ceremony in the Richmond Cemetery during which veterans of from World War II through the Gulf Wars and the War on Terror were honored.
“Your presence here today shows you care and that you wish to express gratitude to those who sacrificed,” retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert Yerks of Richmond told the crowd.
“We honor the stainless sacrifice of all those who have served in the military," as well as those who have served as police and firefighters, he said.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Americans have recognized that police officers and firefighters are an important part of national security as well as public safety, he said.
Yerks recalled Memorial Days of his youth in New York state when he and his brother would join their father, a World War I veteran, in selling poppies for veterans organizations and planting flags on soldiers' graves.
Yerks, who won a Silver Star for valor in the Korean War and two others in Vietnam, as well as numerous other medals, was introduced by Mike Leaverton of the Marine Corps League as “a true American hero.”
However, Yerks wanted to talk about others, heroes who made the “supreme sacrifice.”
One was Norman Anderson, the brother of Yerks' high school sweetheart Iris Anderson. He was killed in the Battle of the Philippine Sea on Oct. 24, 1944, which is Yerks’ birthday.
After he graduated from West Point, Yerks married Iris Anderson and she has been his wife for 59 years.
Another was Ed Chavis the commander of Yerks’ company in Korea. Yerks was placed in command when Chavis, a black soldier from Connecticut, was hit in the chest by a mortar round. Yerks led the company’s remaining 150 soldiers to take a Chinese position in the Chosin Valley. Fewer than 50 of them survived.
“Those men are the real heroes,” he said. “We’re here today to say ‘thanks’ to all those who did not come back.”
About 8,000 soldiers from the Korean War, sometimes called “The Forgotten War,” still are listed as missing in action, he said. Another 2,500 are MIA from Vietnam, he said. Some 61 soldiers from Kentucky, including Theodore “Coty” West, who is buried in Richmond Cemetery, have been killed in Iraq.
The day after Sept. 11, 2001, Americans were “all patriots,” Yerks said, “until the political folks started to creep in.”
He branded as “ridiculous,” those who say “it’s wrong to be proud of our country” or that “we should apologize for our great country.”
“How ridiculous we have become,” Yerks said, “when we cannot put our national motto, ‘In God We Trust,’ in our schools or say ‘under God’ when we pledge allegiance to our flag.”
During the ceremony, four veterans, representing four branches of the armed services and America's four most recent wars, were honored.
Yerks pinned the Prisoner of War Medal on Dewey Mullins, 89, of Richmond. A WWII Army soldier, Mullins was captured during the 1944-45 Battle of the Bulge. He had never received the medal authorized by Congress in 1985.
Jack Hissom, a Marine, represented Korean War veterans, while Tom Mitchell stood for the Navy Vietnam veterans. Tom Blankenship, of the Air Force, represented veterans of the Gulf Wars and the War on Terror.
After the ceremony, retired Circuit Judge James Chenault, a Navy veteran of WWII, congratulated Yerks, Leaverton and the Marine Corps League, which organized this year’s ceremony, “for the best one we’ve ever had.”
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.
