Mission Valley Honor Guard remembers fallen vets and the history

By Lailani Upham

Front row (L to R): Mike Durglo, Chuck Courville, Homer Courville, Leo Tellier, Gene Sorrell, Robert Sigler, Louie Blood, Jack Drowatzky, and Charlie Blood. Back row (L to R): Dan Decker, Art Anderson, Richard VanMannen, Tim Courville, Bill Blood, Eldon White and J.C. Courville. (Lailani Upham photo)

ST. IGNATIUS — On a day set aside for Americans to recognize military veterans, the Mission Valley Honor Guard remembers and pays tribute to the veterans that have passed on.

Each year on November 11 at 11 a.m. it is a tradition for the Mission Valley Honor Guard to render a ceremony at the Veterans War Memorial located in St. Ignatius near the Fire Hall - Police Station. Remarks are carried out for the wars’ fallen soldiers, followed by a twenty-one Gun Salute and the sound of Taps to honor the fallen war dead.

J.C. Courville, who served 20 years in the Air Force thanked the small crowd that showed up on the cold and windy Veteran’s Day morning.

Courville found an old write-up from the Char-Koosta about a first hand experience of a soldier fighting in what appeared to be World War I. The author was unknown.

Courville read the story that he felt gave an inside look at the life of a war soldier after briefing the crowd on the history of Veteran’s Day.

“The Great War,” also known as World War I, officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles in France. However, fighting did cease seven months earlier when a temporary cessation of hostilities between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

For that reason, November 11, 1918, was generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson declared November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"

The original idea for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business to begin at 11 a.m.

Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) was approved May 13, 1938, made November 11 a legal holiday, a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day,” which was a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I.

But in 1954, after World War II had the greatest mobilization of military forces in the Nation’s history; and after the American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word "Armistice" and inserting the word "Veterans." With the approval of this legislation on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

Later that same year, on October 8th, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first "Veterans Day Proclamation"

Mission Valley Color Guard members Rick Van Maahan, holding rifle, Homer Courville, carrying the American Flag and Dan Decker carrying the POW MIA Flag march out the closing ceremony for the “fallen war dead” memorial on Wednesday. (Lailani Upham photo)

For decades The Mission Valley Honor Guard has been conducting approximately seven parades a year and numerous funerals within the Mission Valley. Although recently, The Honor Guard have enlarged their territory to hold services in the Missoula area, according to Mission Valley Honor Guard Officer of the Day, Gene Sorrell.

The Mission Valley Honor Guard is currently at 30 members and looking for new recruits, Sorrell stated.

The American Legion Ladies Auxiliary Post 106 of St. Ignatius took the liberty of cooking a home cooked meal for the Honor Guard and their families at the Doug Allard café.

The members of the ladies Auxiliary group are: Karen Courville, (President), Evelyn Jeanotte (Secretary), Lavonne Olmsted (Chaplain), Ronda Michell, Verna Drowatzky, Ghenna Smithson, Juanita Drowatzky Edwards and Betty White.

For more information on the Mission Valley Honor Guard call Gene Sorrell at (406) 261-5523 or Leo Tillier at (406) 370-2689.
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