Answering the call: Veterans Day speeches focus on service, sacrifice

During the annual Veterans Day program at James Williams Middle School last Friday morning it was noted that just three days are set aside each year for formal recognition of those serving or who have served in the military.

Guest speaker Kari Strebig, associate principal at Rhinelander High School, explained that Memorial Day honors those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Armed Forces Day, on the third Saturday in May, is held in recognition of all active duty military, and Veterans Day honors all those who have served both past and present.

While not a veteran herself, Strebig comes from a long line of veterans that continues to this day as her youngest son, Matthew, is currently serving aboard the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier.

Strebig explained that her family’s military lineage began with the birth of America itself. 

Her great-great-great-great-great-grandfather joined the Continental Army at age 15, she shared. He served in the Battle of Monmouth under Gen. George Washington and is depicted in the famous painting “Washington rallying the troops at Monmouth” by Emanual Leutze.

Decades later, after the Civil War broke out, another Strebig family member also answered the call, serving in the Union Army in Company C 58th Wisconsin Infantry. He was wounded in Little Rock, Ark., she said.

In the 20th century, two of Strebig’s grandparents were part of the Greatest Generation, serving in World War II. Strebig stated that her maternal grandfather served in northern Italy, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart after being wounded by enemy mortar fire. She also noted that he witnessed the execution of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, a fact she learned about by chance when her grandfather reacted to a television show referencing Mussolini’s death.

At the same time, her paternal grandmother was serving in the Senior Cadet Nurse Corps caring for injured troops.

The family’s tradition of service did not stop there as Strebig’s father, Fred Schultz, served in the Korean Conflict as a U.S. Air Force airman and her brother, Joe, was an aviation boatswain’s mate aboard the USS John F. Kennedy in 1989 when two U.S. F14 tomcats shot down two Libyan-operated MIG-23 floggers over the Mediterranean Sea near Tobruk, Libya. 

As Strebig explained, an aviation boatswain’s mate is responsible for directing all takeoffs and landings from the aircraft carrier flight deck.

Ten years after his service ended, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, prompted her brother to re-enlist in the Air Force National Guard, she continued.

A captain with the Minneapolis Fire Department, Strebig said her brother, now 55, is currently deployed to eastern Africa with Minnesota’s 133rd Airlift Wing. Fittingly, he was born on Veterans Day, she added.

Finally, she stated that her son, Matthew, chose to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the U.S. Navy. An Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Fuel) 3rd Class, Strebig recently re-enlisted for another four years, his mother said.

“I, myself, am not a veteran rather I am a descendant,” she said. “I’m a granddaughter, a great-great-granddaughter and so on and so forth, a daughter, a wife and a mother of those who have served.”

“Our nation’s veterans embody the essence of our character values of commitment and selflessness,” she continued. “The veterans of our nation answered the call to serve even when that call was challenging, their commitment to the safety and freedoms of all is an obligation no veteran takes lightly ...”

“In return we can echo that commitment and selflessness through time and service of our own,” she added. 

Among her suggestions were volunteering to take care of pets so that they don’t have to be surrendered to a shelter while a service member is deployed, sending letters, snacks and hygiene packages to those currently serving overseas, seasonal yardwork, donations for food and rent and making and sharing holiday meals.

Strebig also stressed the importance of learning the history of our nation, both good and bad, and sharing stories so that the next generation and those who come after will understand the sacrifices made by those who’ve gone before.

“I encourage all of you to find the veterans throughout our community and listen,” she said.

A few hours later, at the Oneida County Courthouse, county veterans service officer and U.S. Navy veteran Tammy Javenkoski offered similar sentiments, encouraging the members of the Nativity Catholic Middle School Choir, who performed during the ceremony, to take advantage of any opportunity they might have to talk to a veteran.

“They can tell you stories you’ll never read in a history book and some day we won’t have the honor and privilege of hearing about history from the men and women who were there,” she warned.

Javenkoski asked the crowd to imagine a world without veterans and noted that their devotion to their country is not unlike a mother’s instinct to protect her child.

“Like a mother would fight to her death to protect her child a vet would do the same for their country,” she said. 

Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].