McPHERSON, Kan. — Veterans Day was recognized in McPherson Tuesday with the McPherson Area Veterans program at the McPherson Park Department, which at one time was the National Guard Armory.
This year’s featured speaker was Colonel Jeremy Bowers, who just retired from the Kansas Army National Guard and is currently associate pastor at Countryside Covenant Church. A Bronze Star recipient, he was notified Monday his Doctorate in Divinity from Oral Roberts University had been approved.
Colonel Bowers, a native of Leavenworth, joined the US Army in June 2001 at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was later commissioned as a Quartermaster Officer following Officer Candidate School at Fort Lee, Virginia.
He served overseas in Operation Iraqi Freedom as part of the 40th Transportation Company at Fort Lewis, Washington where his platoon provided logistical support for 5th Corps and the 3rd Infantry Division as they pushed into Baghdad.
“It was non-stop, 18 to 20 hours a day. For weeks it was exhausting and we never knew when we were going to have a break.” Colonel Bowers said of that part of his tour in Iraq. Later his unit went to Mosul in support of the 101st Airborne, which was under constant attack while there
“We could hear gunshots going off all night, and helicopters taking off through the night, consistently. And every day me and my platoon went outside the wire, and every day was an uncertain adventure of what we were going to encounter when we left our forward base,” he explained
After six years of active duty which also included command of the 82nd Quartermaster Detachment and a deployment to Saudi Arabia, Colonel Bowers served as a chaplain for the National guard in Illinois, Minnesota and Kansas as he worked on his Master of Divinity degree. He received a Bronze Star for meritorious service in Iraq, and Monday learned he has been confirmed for his Doctorate in Divinity from Oral Roberts University.
Some of his remarks were directed at young people in the audience, including the McPherson High School Band and students from St. Joseph’s School in which he said it doesn’t take an extraordinary person to serve. He also said in the service, people are willing to die for you. “Every single one of them, probably you never knew, and they never knew you either. But they signed up to potentially have to sacrifice their lives for you.” he stated.
McPherson VFW post commander Bobby Cox in his opening remarks spoke about young people stepping forward to serve their country, explaining “young men and women left home at an early age to accept the responsibility of defending this nation and other peoples around the globe to ensure freedom was still a way of life. We must always remember freedom is not free.”
The program also included the playing of “Amazing Grace” by bagpipers Lonnie Liljegren, Gavin Frazier and Ben Mourn, and Taps by Mark Casebeer. Colonel Bowers was introduced by American Legion Commander Dan Hervey.
The Veterans Day of today has its roots in Armistice Day, which was first proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 to commemorate the signing of the armistice that ended World War I. Congress designated it as a national holiday in 1938.
Today’s Veterans Day has its roots in Kansas. In 1953 Alvin J. King, a shoe cobbler and World War II veteran from Emporia, suggested changing Armistice Day to Veterans Day to honor all veterans for all wars. A bill to that effect was introduced in Congress by Kansas Representative Ed Rees, and later signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The first official observance of Veterans Day as we now know it took place in 1954.
