Dan Gallagher - February 02, 2010
Veteran’s Viewpoint
This is Dan Gallagher with Veteran’s Viewpoint.
In two weeks we will celebrate what is now termed as ‘Presidents Day’. Actually, this was created as a Monday holiday a few years back by combining Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on February 12th and George Washington’s birthday on February 22nd, as well as recognizing all others who have served as the nation’s chief executive. It is a day to acknowledge the many presidents who have served with honor and accomplishment, as well as those whose tenure was less than stellar.
When the framers of our constitution considered that office, they worked diligently to assure that the chief executive officer would not have the authority of a monarch--against which we had so recently achieved our independence--nor would it be a position of weakness as had been evident under the Articles of Confederation. Thus, a three-branch government was created, with the president embodying the duties and rights of the Executive branch.
At first, no one knew how to act toward the president--should he be referred to as the royalty had been--as “your majesty”--or did our democracy dictate that he was to have NO special deference?
It was George Washington who established the standard, refusing to be called “your majesty” and deciding that proper respect could be shown to the office and its occupant with a simple “Mr. President”.
Washington demonstrated, as president, the same combination of intellect, common sense, and decency that he had shown as the general of the army that gave us our independence.
Sixty-four years after Washington, Abraham Lincoln defined and filled the role of president as no one else had--or yet has--done.
It is interesting to note that these two greatest presidents experienced the most intense depths of war in the time leading to, and during their presidential terms--Washington in the Revolutionary War and Lincoln in the Civil War.
Equally interesting is the fact that the president is specifically named in the constitution as the Commander in Chief of all of America’s armed forces, most likely a nod to the role that Washington had already performed.
And, relative to the history of America’s veterans, I find it especially interesting and pleasing that both of these presidential giants had a special interest in, and closeness with, the veteran population.
Washington commented during his presidency, when the issue of veterans’ pensions was being discussed, that it was of paramount importance to recognize veterans’ service in a substantive way because, as he said, the willingness of young Americans to answer the call to military service in the future would be in direct correlation to how the veterans of America’s past wars were treated by our country in the later stages of their lives.
Boy, was he right!
And Lincoln made it clear that among his greatest burdens as president was sending young men into battle AND in planning for their care and treatment once the fires of war were quenched. Lincoln even expressed his sympathy for the soldiers who wore gray, having special reason for those feelings with three of his wife’s brothers serving in the Confederate army.
Those who think of Washington’s concern for veterans can understand how personal it must have been to him. These were fellow survivors of the bloody winter at Valley Forge; the men who marched with him to Yorktown to take Cornwallis’ surrender and make our country free.
Revolutionary War veterans almost universally revered the old general, and saw him as just a bit short of deity.
Although not as organized as later generations of veterans, these veterans of the War of Independence did form a veterans organization, the Order of the Cincinnati. This was not the politically involved, lobbyingforce that we would later see, certainly not as organized or politically powerful as the Civil War veterans group, the Grand Army of the Republic. Actually, it was more of a fraternity than a political force--but it existed well into the 1800s and kept alive the memories of the deeds of the Colonial soldiers, and the noble image of the ‘Father of Our Country‘, George Washington.
In March 1865, barely a month before his assassination, Abraham Lincoln delivered his second Inaugural Address, which many historians believe was even greater than the words he spoke at Gettysburg. He looked back at the war and its incredible cost, even speculating that God may have let it happen to purge the nation’s sins. But he also spoke of his hopes for the future, and of the daunting task before the American people to “bind up the nation’s wounds”.
It was in this speech that Lincoln delivered the quintessential words of support for veterans, and attention to their needs. He said that it was the duty of the country “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and orphan”.
That statement, more than any other single phrase, established the paradigm that America has both a legal AND a moral obligation to care for its veterans; a principle that this country, its citizens, its lawmakers, and its veterans live by today.
There have been other great presidents in our history who have spoken for and actually worked for veterans’ recognition and well-being, but it is these two presidential giants--Washington and Lincoln--to whom the veteran community owes the honor due to the greatest of the great.
This is Dan Gallagher with Veteran’s Viewpoint.
|
|
