MARIES COUNTY — At the corner of Alvarado Avenue and Third Street in Belle, the War in Afghanistan is engraved on the veterans memorial. It was among the conflicts added in 2023. Local VFW Post Commander Diane James told the Maries County Advocate that the time had come to include veterans of more recent conflicts. The story was covered in the Oct. 11, 2023, edition.

On the courthouse square in Vienna, a statue of a World War I infantryman, known as a doughboy, stands near memorials to World War II and the Vietnam War. The World War I memorial bears eight names in memory of those who died in service:

Ransom Ray Birdsong

John Leslie Parker

Rector Guy Boyce

Harry Wood Sharp

Elijah E. Overlease

Richard Bland Bierbaum

Benjamin Ralph Wiles

Claude Franklin Chider

For a child who has heard about World War I in school, those names offer a different place to start. Who were these men? Where did they live? Who in Maries County waited to hear from them?

World War I is the reason Veterans Day falls on Nov. 11. In 1918, an agreement between Germany and the Allies stopped the fighting at 11 a.m. that day. A year later, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first Armistice Day. Congress made it a legal holiday in 1938. By 1954, Americans had also served in World War II and Korea, and Congress renamed the holiday Veterans Day to honor veterans of all wars. Belle’s decision to add to its memorial came from a similar impulse. As more people serve, the way a community remembers has to make room for them.

Memorial Day honors those who died in military service. Veterans Day honors those who served in war and in peace, and it gives us a particular opportunity to thank living veterans. Some spent months overseas. Others kept aircraft flying, trained new recruits or cared for patients. Asking a veteran what their job was gives them room to tell their stories about what service looked like from where they stood.

Maries County schools have made room for those stories in ways children can take part in. In 2025, the Belle PTO held a Veterans Day poster contest for third and fourth graders, and Bland Middle School recognized its winners in the VFW’s Patriot’s Pen essay contest. A student may come to a program because it’s part of the school day. They may leave knowing something about a neighbor or relative they had never thought to ask.

One way to keep that conversation going is to bring an old photograph to the kitchen table. Ask who took it, who’s in it or what was happening back home when it was mailed. If a veteran wants to tell a story, let them choose where to begin. With their permission, write down what they remember or record it in their own voice. Even a few lines with names, dates and places can give a grandchild a way into a story they might otherwise know only from a photograph. The Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project also preserves veterans’ recorded interviews, letters and photographs.

Gratitude can be more immediate, too. A call to a neighbor after the school program, a ride offered to someone who could use one or an invitation to sit down over coffee can matter on any day of the year. And when a veteran would rather talk about the garden or how the Tigers or Eagles are doing, that’s a conversation worth having. The point of showing up is to spend time with the person in front of you.

On Veterans Day this year, take a few minutes at the square in Vienna or the corner of Third and Alvarado in Belle. Read the inscriptions. Think of someone who has served and next time they are around, be open to hearing more when they feel like telling.

Coverage of Veterans Day events will be in next week’s edition of The Maries County Advocate.