Valley honors veterans

More than a hundred people gathered under gray skies behind the Temple Masonic Lodge on Broadway Tuesday morning to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Veterans Day with songs, speeches and a precision rifle drill.
The city’s annual ceremony is usually held at the Sonoma Valley Veterans Memorial Building on First Street East. But in his welcome to the crowd, Temple Lodge’s Master Jason Bryant said this year’s commemoration included a focus on five-star Army and Air Force Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold: a Mason and former Wright Brothers student who created the Army Air Force and commanded it from 1941 through 1945. After the war, Arnold retired to Sonoma Valley, where he lived at his “El Rancho Feliz” home near Glen Ellen until his death in 1950. Both Arnold Drive and Sonoma’s Arnold Field are named in his honor.
Bryant said that earlier in the day, the lodge held a dedication ceremony of its new courtyard flagpole – or rather, Arnold’s old flagpole, which flew the Air Force and Army banners above El Rancho Feliz between 1946 and last month, when Arnold’s grandson, Robert, donated it to the lodge – whose 1851 founding members included Union General (then Capt.) William T. Sherman.
“The military roots of Temple Lodge, as you see, run deep,” Bryant said.
Following his introduction, the Sonoma Valley High School Madrigal Singers, under the direction of Barbara McElroy, rendered three verses of “The Star Spangled Banner.” A trio of color guards – from the local Civil Air Patrol squadron, the University of San Francisco’s ROTC chapter, and Travis Air Force Base – marched with flags along closed-off Maple Street and into the lodge’s rear parking lot. The Rev. Peader Dalton gave the invocation, saying the 136 million people who thronged America’s polls last week “owed that right to the men and women who fought to preserve it.”
Next, the crowd ooohed and ahhhed as the four of the five-man USAF Honor Guard Drill Team – each bearing a highly polished M-1 Garand with fixed bayonet – stood in a precise square, twirling and tossing the 11-pound rifles to each other while one stood unmoving in the middle.
Sonoma Mayor Joanne Sanders made the city’s official Veterans Day proclamation, but not before thanking “the veterans here who have risked your lives for our freedom.”
“Our interest in what they did … honors the men and women who’ve served the United States of America,” Sanders said, concluding, “May our soldiers fighting in wars today make it home safely.”
Robert Arnold next thanked the assembly, saying of the newly dedicated flagpole, “Hap Arnold would have been happy to know the Masons are taking care of it.”
Arnold highlighted his grandfather’s life and career, emphasizing the general’s take-charge attitude.
“He could pick up the phone, cut through red tape, and large things would start to happen very quickly,” Arnold said.
He drew laughter when he recounted Arnold’s only visit to the Temple Lodge, with Gen. George C. Marshall who, as
U. S. Secretary of State in 1945, stayed with Arnold while attending the first United Nations conference in San Francisco. The pair had dropped in unannounced, and when they left Arnold backed into another driver – whom he then dressed down, accepted an apology from, and subsequently dismissed with a curt, “Don’t let it happen again.”
Other guest speakers included San Francisco American Legion Commander Michael Gerold, who talked about the qualities of leadership, the importance of air power to modern combat and the difficulties of veterans returning from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – as well as the anguish of their families.
“They have a lot in common with Vietnam veterans … their homecoming is less than ideal,” Gerold said.
Local American Legion historian Bill Laird, saying, “A veteran is someone who wrote a blank check to the United States of America, payable up to and including his or her life,” sketched the history of Veterans Day – from its 1918 origin as Armistice Day and the burial of unknown soldiers in Washington, D.C., London and Paris.
The Rev. Dalton’s benediction closed with the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (“Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace…”), the color guards marched back their flags to the piped strains of “Amazing Grace,” and – while all stood and saluted – a lone bugle played “Taps.”