Veterans Day. Just those two words make me pause. Just those two words elicit feelings of gratitude, humility, pride, sadness, joy and honor. Veterans Day.

Those two words … they are powerful. Veterans Day allows us to honor those men and women who served a cause bigger than themselves, and who still do. They serve us, the people of the United States, people unknown to the soldiers personally, yet still they serve.

Copiah-Lincoln Community College will host our annual Veterans Day Celebration at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the Nelson Multipurpose room located in the Career and Technical building on the Natchez campus.

Our guest speaker, Major General (Retired) Erik Hearon, entered the Mississippi Air National Guard in January 1970 and retired in February 2010.

He entered military service as an E-1, completed basic training, was commissioned, and began pilot training almost one year later. He served from November 2002 until July 2003 at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar as director of the Regional Air Movement Control Center-Afghanistan and Iraq, a multinational unit. Upon his return to Mississippi, Hearon was selected from Operations Group Commander in the 172nd Airlift Wing in Jackson to be the Wing Commander of the 186th Air Refueling Wing in Meridian.

He feels that his most rewarding missions overall involved air evacuation missions and the most unique military destination was in November 2009 to Antarctica, including the South Pole.

We hope you will join us in welcoming Major General Hearon to Natchez.

And, we especially hope you will join us in honoring and remembering our veterans.

Come join us to honor our heroes and to celebrate these extraordinary men and women. Join us in saying thank you, at least in a small way, for your dedication to our country.

In remembrance of those who served, a prayer for Veterans Day:

Father, we ask for blessings on all those who have served their country in the armed forces.

We could never thank our military men and women enough for their courageous service and sacrifice to our country and its people.

We ask for healing for the veterans who have been wounded, in body and soul, in conflicts around the globe.

Bring solace to them, O Lord; may we pray for them when they cannot pray.

Today we lift up our voices to express gratefulness and honor to these military troops both from the past and present.

Show us ways in our communities, churches, and families to thank and love them better.

May their calling to service continue in their lives in many positive ways. Keep and protect these heroes and their families, in the powerful name of Jesus.

 

Teresa Busby is the vice president of the Natchez Campus of Copiah-Lincoln Community College.