PARADE, SPEECH PAYS HOMAGE TO VETERANS

JACKSON -- Cape Girardeau County Assistant Prosecutor Ian Sutherland gave a frank Veterans Day speech Thursday to about 75 veterans and their families at American Legion Post 158.

"This day is about you," said Sutherland, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served with the 82nd Airborne Division and Special Forces in Vietnam.

"I was a professional soldier; I chose to be a soldier like you would choose to be a doctor or a lawyer," Sutherland said. "But the rest of you put your lives on hold and did what your country asked you to do."

Sutherland was highly decorated during his military career. Among the medals he has received are a Silver Star, two Legions of Merit and five Bronze Stars.

Dressed in full uniform, Sutherland focused on World War II during his speech -- a war in which he said, "we validated our honor.

"We had very little to gain in that war," said Sutherland. "We set out to destroy that very thing that threatened the things we hold dear.

"World War II was a place where we were tested as a people more so than any other place we have been," he continued. "You are the men who looked the hated enemy in the eye -- an enemy capable of ruling the world."

Sutherland told the group that he remembers as a child being "scared to death" of the threat the Japanese posed on the West Coast.

"I remember Pearl Harbor like it just happened yesterday," he said. "While California was a good long way from Tennessee, we were very afraid of the Japanese threat to this country."

A number of veterans groups, including the American Legion Color Guard and the Cape Girardeau and Jackson VFW posts, attended the ceremony Thursday.

Sutherland recognized the advancing age of the group and wondered aloud if the country is not weakening as they grow old.

"You are fading from our national life and we will suffer for it," he said.

"I'm left to wonder if these summits with gang chiefs in Chicago aren't reminiscent of our summits with (Adolf) Hitler near the close of the second World War," Sutherland said.

"You learned a long time ago that you do not appease people who use force as a manner of obtaining their ends.

"You have learned that the hard way in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and in Normandy -- where the history of the world pivoted on the actions of thousands of men in those four or five hours."

The prosecutor finished: "Maybe the battle has just begun. You're leaving us -- slowly pulling out of a war hard-fought, but the battle is beginning again.

"In the next few years we will discover who we truly are as a people. We will truly suffer for your loss."