Honoring our Veterans 2024 in Town, beyond
‘Twenty-two veterans commit suicide every day:’ Polis
While the mood during Concord-Farragut Republican Club’s Thursday, Nov. 7, meeting at Fruition Cafe was upbeat — with one member playing the unofficial theme song of President-elect Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, The Village People’s “YMCA,” in celebration — the keynote message to come would feature lots of somber reminders for Republicans and Democrats alike.
The Rev. Dr. Patrick Polis, a former U.S. Army captain whose service in Vietnam included three combat tours, for which he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal and Bronze Star, addressed CFRC members, from which three raised their hands as fellow veterans.
“All of us that have been in combat are scarred for the rest of our life, and we carry that with us,” said Polis, president of Pat Polis Ministries, a church consulting ministry, who hosts his own weekly radio program called “The Church Mechanic” on WRJZ 620 in Knoxville. “… Sacrifices of veterans and their families have made are too numerous to mention. Trauma for military service has taken its toll in nightmares and suicide.
“Do you know that 22 veterans a day commit suicide?” he added. “Twenty-two a day. Addictions of all kinds, broken relationships.”
In his case, “I can’t have somebody come up behind me — and it’s been over 50 years since I came out of the jungle — because if somebody comes up behind me, I immediately react,” said Polis, who served eight years in the Army.
“… Now, if you want to know what it’s like to be shot at, I can tell you. If you want to know what it’s like to be in a helicopter and take ground fire, I can tell you. If you want to know what it’s like to be in a bunker and wonder if you’re ever going to eat another hot dog or watch a ballgame or cut the grass, I can tell you that, too.”
Polis noted the emotional hardships, which include veterans’ families, in addition to combat challenges. “Long separations from families, missing important events like children’s birthdays and Christmases and other holidays,” he said. “Freezing temperatures in the mountains or baking temperatures in the jungles, enduring physical injury — but even more than physical, the mental and emotional stress and trauma.
“And far too often, loss of life.”
Of all of the servicemen and servicewomen killed in action that come back to the United States, “85 percent are viewable by their families, which means 15 percent aren’t,” said Polis, who was inducted into the Army Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame in Fort Benning, Georgia, Class of 2019.
Families back home pay in numerous ways while a parent is away.
“Military spouses also endure much with frequent changes in address, loneliness and a disproportionate amount of responsibility for parenting while the other parent is missing,” Polis said.
“And what about the children?” he added. “Think about the children of military families moving from base to base or post to post, leaving their schools, leaving their friends, leaving their neighborhoods.
“Just think of the trauma that we caused to the children … wondering, ‘is my mom or dad going to come back home from wherever they are?’”
And when they come back home, “what are they going to be like?” Polis said about family and children questions. “Veterans need each other. And that’s why we have the American Legion and Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Veterans of America, of which we are a member, and Veterans of Foreign Wars.
“They exist to serve and support all of us that are veterans,” he added. “To be a veteran, even though we have scars, aches and pains, agent orange, loss of limb, whatever, we would still put a uniform on to defend this country, because the oath we took in the very beginning said this, ‘that we would support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’”
Wreaths Dec. 14
“It’s been said that a veteran dies twice, once when they quit breathing, and once when their name is no longer mentioned,” Polis said. “On the second Saturday every December, there’s something called National Wreath Day.
“I’m part of a team of six United Veterans Council Knox Wreaths team, and we have the responsibility of raising the funds necessary to cover every veteran in Knox County with a wreath on National Wreath Day,” he added. “ … We want to honor and respect every veteran and make sure that their name is mentioned.
“When you lay the wreath against the headstone, you back up and you say that veteran’s name so that they’re remembered. And truth of the matter is, for those of us that have served, one day, they’re going to be laying a wreath on us.”
Wreaths Across America is expanding its role in Farragut to honor deceased U.S. veterans, including Congressional Medal of Honor recipients and other war heroes, during its annual ceremony — starting at 10 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 14.
“The number we have is almost 300 folks and veterans in four different cemeteries” in Farragut, said Marilyn Childress, president of the Veterans Heritage Site Foundation with Wreaths Across America.
Farragut sites are Pleasant Forest Cemetery, 401 Concord Road; Virtue Cemetery, 12446 Evans Road; Grigsby Chapel United Methodist Church Cemetery, 11603 Grigsby Chapel Road; and Union Cumberland Presbyterian Cemetery, 12434 Union Road.
To kick things off, “They’ll have a main ceremony at Pleasant Forest,” Childress said.
“When that ceremony is over, then folks that are going to the other three cemeteries will leave Pleasant Forest,” she added.
