generic Veteran of three services
Nov. 11—VALDOSTA — The bell rang six times at 11 a.m.
Chris Melody, director of adult and military programs at Valdosta State University and a former Navy man, rang the bell Friday at a Veterans Day observance at Pound Hall on VSU's North Campus.
The six rings represent the cessation of hostilities of World War I at 11 a.m. Nov. 11.
On a table near the bell were wreaths made of poppies, the longtime symbol of war dead. The poppies gained this distinction starting in the first World War, when a doctor in the Canadian army, John McCrae, wrote a poem in 1915 describing the flowers that grew near the graves of the dead: "In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow / between the crosses, row on row..."
"There are 6,900 veterans in Lowndes County," Melody said, as well as 1,700 people at VSU who have a military affiliation.
Melody introduced the speaker for the event, a Valdosta man who made the poppy wreaths, and had served in the Royal Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force and the U.S. Air Force, held elective office, became deputy mayor of London and also served as President Ronald Reagan's military attache, Terry Burton.
Burton grew up in London during the Blitz, Nazi Germany's night-after-night bombing campaign against the city in 1940-1941 that failed to break Great Britain.
"That was my playground," he said.
Postwar, he joined the RAF and eventually became a pilot flying C-130 Hercules transport planes.
He saw combat action in the Vietnam War. "A lot of people don't realize the British were fighting in Vietnam," Burton said. More than 500 British soldiers died in that conflict, he said.
He attained the rank of wing commander, which is about equal to a colonel in U.S. military ranks.
At one point, his C-130 was shot out from under him with a surface-to-air missile.
Through the use of joint commands between allied nations, he was moved first from the RAF to the Royal Australian Air Force and then from the Australians to the U.S. Air Force.
He left his military career in 1990 after 32 years of service, having become an American citizen along the way.
He now heads up a Normandy Veterans Group online that aids former soldiers who went ashore in France on June 6, 1944, to retake "Fortress Europe" from the Germans. Much of the work goes toward assisting these men in return trips to the region of the invasion.
He told Friday's audience the story of a 16-year-old boy, Jack Banks, believed to be Great Britain's youngest casualty of the Second World War. He had lied about his age to get into the armed forces when he was 15.
"In those days, if you were a strapping big lad at 14 or 15, they couldn't tell how old you were and they didn't have ID back then," Burton said.
According to the Lancashire Telegraph, Banks was killed by a mortar shell.
While researching Banks' life, Burton met the army chaplain who had laid Banks to rest in a French war cemetery.
Burton presented the medals due to Banks to his surviving family.
"(The family) said they would like to have his medals, but that was years ago and they couldn't get them," he said. "I told them, 'Yes you can. I was a politician and know how to get these things done.' "
Terry Richards is the senior reporter for The Valdosta Daily Times.
