Veterans Day

Yesterday's commemoration of Veterans' Day was its usual unremarkable mixture of rain-soaked ceremony and unabashed commercialism. President Bush paid all due honor to the nation's fighting forces while promoting his own war with Iraq. Aging soldiers closed ranks - they're dying at a rate of a thousand a day now - and some schools and offices closed doors, an homage to those who made the ultimate sacrifice before such a notion became a Hollywood clich?. Still, time did not stop yesterday at the 11th hour of the 11th day, when the original Armistice was signed.

On each side of the elegant double gate on Kaighns Avenue, large granite monoliths will honor each branch of the military. At the end of a divided macadam road, a memorial will pay tribute to Vietnam veterans, while a looping brick walkway will carry visitors past graves to a bluff overlooking the Cooper River. And there, polished black-granite columbariums and mausoleums, and rows of headstones will cover the grounds, while the flags of the nation, state, and county flutter overhead.

In the last 60 years, Americans have fought in wars and conflicts all over the globe. A new cohort of veterans will return from the battlefields of Iraq. What are your thoughts as this Veterans Day - originally the Armistice Day of World War I - approaches? Do you look back on your own or your family's experience of war? Do you have words for the returning veterans of this latest conflict? Send letters or essays of about 200 to 300 words to South Jersey Voices, 53 Haddonfield Rd., Suite 300, Cherry Hill, N.J. 08002.

Now that the evidence has melted away, it's hard to believe that the area was covered with snow on Wednesday. At left, pedestrians walk through the storm on 15th Street just north of Chestnut Street. At right, Anthony Hoppe and his children, Rebecca, 8, and Robert, 4, were at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington to observe Veterans Day. The name of Sgt. Thomas S. Lipp, Hoppe's brother-in-law, recently was added to the memorial.

Russian and U.S. troops speed side by side in armored personnel carriers and Humvees, their colorful unit flags whipping in the chill autumn wind. A Hollywood fantasy or Tom Clancy potboiler? No. Those were real Russian and U.S. units on maneuvers last month in the hills above Ft. Riley, Kan. The unthinkable has become the unremarkable only four years after the collapse of the Soviet empire, which brings us to Veterans Day, 1995. It is an opportunity to reflect upon, and pay tribute to, those who served the United States in war and stand ready to defend its best interests in peace.

In Delaware County, where there are more than 90,000 veterans and 75 veterans posts, Veterans Day has special meaning. "Patriotism is still alive and well in Delaware County," said John Kearney, a member of Springfield's American Legion Post 227. "The veterans organizations here are very strong in their memberships and in their activities. We're very involved in Americanism. " The veterans organizations in the county include the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, the Jewish War Veterans, the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Veterans of World War I and a group of former prisoners of war. Kearney, who was in the Army in World War II, said the veterans groups perform community service by visiting hospitals, sponsoring scholarships for youths and entertaining disadvantaged and retarded children.

The phone jarred me awake last Wednesday. The familiar voice on the other end said: "Hey, grab your socks, fall out on the road, let's celebrate. " Slats, what are you talking about? "It's our day. We're being honored. " For what? "It's Veterans Day, don't you know? So you're a veteran and I'm a veteran, let's do something. " But it is a workday. We have to work. "Yeah, I guess you're right. But it don't seem right. " What don't? "This is a holiday.

The largest Veterans Day parade in the town's history is planned to begin at noon Thursday, with a military flyover; 17 school bands; a host of state officials, including Gov. Ridge as the grand marshal; and a Veterans Legacy flag-exchange ceremony. Mayor Bob McMahon, the parade's chairman, said that during the flag exchange, each veteran will hand a U.S. flag and a POW-MIA flag to a relative or student. "Through the flag exchange ceremony, we hope to give a new generation who has not experienced war firsthand a chance to appreciate what their family members did to preserve freedom in this country," McMahon said.

Alfred Pirolli is just like the rest of us. He still feels a thrill, "a tingle in the spine," he calls it, when the flag passes by and the band plays "The Star-Spangled Banner. " And when a lone bugler sounds "Taps," a lump builds in his throat and his eyes mist a bit. "Yeah, it's still there. Though I hear the national anthem and 'Taps' every day, the feeling's always there. I think it's there for all of us," Pirolli said. He knows that tomorrow, during the 10 a.m. Veterans Day wreath-laying ceremonies of the United Veterans Council on Washington Square, those feelings will return.

On each side of the elegant double gate on Kaighns Avenue, large granite monoliths will honor each branch of the military. At the end of a divided macadam road, a memorial will pay tribute to Vietnam veterans, while a looping brick walkway will carry visitors past graves to a bluff overlooking the Cooper River. And there, polished black-granite columbariums and mausoleums, and rows of headstones will cover the grounds, while the flags of the nation, state, and county flutter overhead.

Vice President Biden leaned over to veteran Ruthie Severino, gave her a big bear hug, and thanked the former Navy Wave for her years of service. Moments earlier, from the steps of the Delaware County Courthouse, where he had come to participate in the 52d annual Media Veterans Day parade, Biden told the crowd of 500 to reach out and help veterans and their families. "All they want to know is that you know," he said Friday. The crowd applauded. The bear hug's recipient exulted.

MAULDIN, S.C. - Mitt Romney didn't win in South Carolina in 2008, but he's back in the state and looking to capitalize on his strong position atop the field of 2012 Republican presidential candidates. He hopes to sway voters who were cool to him four years ago. The former Massachusetts governor's mission has recently become easier, as several rivals struggle to mend damaged campaigns ahead of Saturday's GOP debate on foreign policy. The 8 p.m. debate from Wofford College in Spartanburg is sponsored by CBS News and the National Journal.

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Patchy, dense fog was an issue this morning in much of the Philadelphia area, but sun was soon taking over, promising to lift temperatures nicely above normal. The high should be in the ballpark of the 72 reached Tuesday in the city. It should also be the 11th day without any measurable rain. The last storm was the one that brought snow - heavy outage-causing snow west and north of the city - on Oct. 29. Overnight into Thursday night, some light rain in the forecast, and temperatures should start dropping.

Next Friday is Veterans Day, and John Lopatosky, an unemployed Air Force veteran from Levittown, hopes he'll be working by that time. But at the pace the economy is moving, Lopatosky's chances may be slim, despite his optimism, varied resume, and willingness. On Friday, the Labor Department released its monthly jobs report. The nation's payrolls added just 80,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate dropped slightly from 9.1 percent to 9 percent. "We wanted the hare in the recovery race but got the turtle.

CORONADO, Calif. - Staging the first NCAA college basketball game on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier is going to be a task as big as the USS Carl Vinson itself. Just less than five months before North Carolina and Michigan State are scheduled to play on Veterans Day, officials from the Navy, ESPN and the Morale Entertainment Foundation spent a few hours Monday inspecting the flat top, which last month buried Osama bin Laden at sea. Based at North Island Naval Air Station, across the bay from downtown San Diego, the Carl Vinson returned Wednesday from a deployment of nearly seven months.

Dan Wine placed an American flag at his uncle's grave at New Camden Cemetery on Saturday, then drove to the soldiers' plot nearby. He expected to see scores of flags, standing like sentries, in front the veterans' graves in honor of Memorial Day. "What I found angered me," said Wine, a former Air Force master sargeant who served in Kuwait. "Someone had pulled up all the flags and left them on the ground. " Metal rods that supported the plastic flag holders had been stolen, leaving the ground littered with flags.