Veterans Day events canceled
The coronavirus has forced cancellation of every major public event in San Antonio this year — Fiesta, the July 4 fireworks, the big Jimenez Thanksgiving dinner.
Now, it has claimed perhaps the most prominently celebrated military holiday in the city — Veterans Day.
Aubrey David, director of Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, said the groups that put on the annual hourlong program there and at San Antonio National Cemetery every Nov. 11 scratched their plans because of the pandemic.
A parade downtown that runs on the Saturday before Veterans Day was canceled, too.
“I’m sure we will still have quite a bit of visitation on Veterans Day,” David said. “Both the Bexar County Buffalo Soldiers and Greater Veterans of San Antonio Area thought it would be best to not hold the ceremonies and resume next year.”
That in itself is rare — events like the Veterans Day and Memorial Day ceremonies here have gone on with few exceptions. Fort Sam canceled its annual Memorial Day ceremony in 2016 after
heavy storms broke out. But in 2018, the Veterans Day ceremony continued despite rain.
The coronavirus, however, has erased events from the calendar in San Antonio, a city known for its love of solemn military ceremonies, parades and parties.
The Air Force's and Army's annual Operation Homecooking and Mission Thanksgiving — events that saw airmen and soldiers in training spend time with local families — won't happen this year.
“No part of our community has been spared from the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and we have lost some of our most important events temporarily,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said via email. “I hope our community finds different ways this year — joining in spirit if not physically — to honor our veterans and their families as we should every single day in Military City, U.S.A.”
Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, declared by the United States, Great Britain and France to mark the cease-fire that ended World War I at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Congress redesignated the day in 1954 to honor all who served in America's wars.
Texans played a big role in World War I, with about 200,000 troops serving from August 1917 to the end, most of them in France. The 36th and 90th Infantry Divisions were called up, and 450 women served as nurses, the Texas World War I Centennial Committee says.
In all, 5,170 Texans died, seven of them women from the Army & Navy Nurse Corps. A third of all the deaths occurred because of the influenza epidemic of 1918-19, which claimed 675,000 lives across the United States.
Over the next century, Veterans Day became important to San Antonio, a city with deep ties to the Army and Air Force. It long has marked the holiday with a solemn ceremony featuring patriotic music, the world-traveled Texas Children's Choir and a naturalization ceremony. But none of that will happen this year.
It's possible an American Legion event that salutes veterans
who've died, in which Legionnaires read the names of veterans buried at Fort Sam over the previous year, won't take place as planned in the spring, either. They didn't gather for the ceremony last May
“Overall of course, I'd like to have it like we do every year, but with the situation right now, I don't know,” retired Army Sgt. Maj. Robert Masten, 78, a former commander of the American Legion's District 20, said Tuesday.
“I just wish it could be better than it is,” he continued. “You always want to err on the side of caution.”