HISTORY

Emmitt Yeary’s path to the creation of the new veteran’s park in town was paved with yellow ribbons and a little red tape.

Yeary, a local attorney, served with the 82nd Airborne Division and in Vietnam in the late 1960s. In an effort to counter some of the antiwar protests earlier in 2003, he organized a campaign to place yellow memorial ribbons around town.

That eventually led to a larger effort to create the soldier’s memorial on a then-unnamed 13-acre town park.

He said he was hanging ribbons with his 11-year-old daughter Laura when a younger lawyer asked him what the yellow ribbons meant.

“At that time, I thought, here’s a young man who’s lived in this country for 27 years and who’s trained in law,’ he said. “If he doesn’t know, what about other young people?”

The next stop he decided to make was at the Washington County Public Library in the hope that young people coming in with their parents would stop to ask what the ribbon symbolized.

However, workers there told him they would have to get a legal opinion before he could hang a ribbon on their sign. He heard the same thing when he went to post one at the county administration building.

“I thought common sense would prevail that morning, but apparently, it did not,” he said.

Yeary was told he would have to introduce a resolution before the Board of Supervisors before he could post the ribbon. Frustrated, he organized local veterans to go before the board to explain the importance of supporting the soldiers fighting in Iraq.

County officials relaxed their stance before the meeting, but the veterans initiative still had momentum.

One day, while talking to Korean War veteran and prisoner of war Jim Beavers at the Kroger shopping center, Yeary took note of the unnamed and largely unused town park over his friend’s shoulder.

It was then that he came up with idea to make the park a veterans’ memorial, he said.

The Town Council later agreed, and the veterans’ group was able to get donations to pay for a sign there and two flagpoles.

Plans are to erect more flagpoles to fly the symbols of the five branches of service and a prisoner of war/missing in action flag.

Yeary said he envisions more memorials in the park, be it to certain units, figures of wars. He said he’d also like to see a history museum to encompass not only military history but that of the town and county.

The park’s recent designation as an arboretum will help memorialize soldiers because folks will be able to dedicate a tree in honor of a loved one, he said.

“We could also have a place there in honor of peace,” he said. “This is not a war park. We’ve got to remember, though, that it takes soldiers to secure that peace.”

Yeary has a love of history. He has helped with extensive renovations to The Tavern, the oldest building in town and what some historians call one of the most historically accurate buildings in the mid-Atlantic, as well as his own office.

“We need always to be mindful of where we are today because so many in our lives have been stepping stones for us,” he said. “We should be stepping stones for those who follow us.”

Reprinted from Bristol Herald Courier, 11.24.03

PROPOSING VETERANS MEMORIAL PARK TO ABINGDON TOWN COUNCIL

by Emmitt F. Yeary, June 2, 2003

Tonight, I stand before you with many emotions – with feelings of pride and privilege to be allowed to be here, and with an overriding sense of honor, duty and purpose.

Thirty-six year ago, I first heard the name of Billy Webb – Lieutenant Billy Webb. Billy was a person who I never met but his name I will never forget.

William “Billy” Webb was born and raised on a small hill overlooking the courthouse in Abingdon – the only son of Grant and Mary Gray Webb. He attended Abingdon High School, and after graduating from Virginia Military Institute was commissioned a Lieutenant in the United States Army. Soon thereafter he was ordered to Vietnam. After only a short time there, he and a young sergeant were scouting an area to establish a base camp about 20 miles north of Saigon. Upon reaching the top of a small hill, about the same size of the one where Billy was raised he and the sergeant were ambushed and killed by the Viet Cong.

Several months later, I too, also as a member of the United States Army, along with thousands of other young soldiers fooled Billy to Vietnam. Mrs. Webb, Billy’s mothers, who also, I had never met but who knew of my being in Vietnam through family ties, wrote and asked if I would please find out the circumstances surrounding the death of her boy, Billy. It was a sad and pitiful plea to bring some meaning and sense of closure to the tragic loss of her only son.

Fortunately, after some time, I was able to locate Billy’s old company, which by then had established headquarters at the foot of the hill where Billy was killed. In front of the headquarters hut was a little dusty dirt road and across the road there was a line of other huts and behind those there ran another small dirt road parallel to the one in front of the headquarters. On the side of the road in front of the headquarters, Billy’s comrades, who did not want him to be forgotten, has proudly erected a “street sign” naming the little dirt road “Lt. Billy Webb Avenue.” On the other road they placed a similar sign honoring the young sergeant. I wrote Mrs. Webb and told her what I had learned, hoping it might bring her some solace and comfort to know that her son had not died in vain, but in service to his fellow soldiers and his country.

Many of you here probably know some of the rest of the story. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong later swept through the base after our troops had been withdrawn, and destroyed all the signs and any recognition that Billy was ever there.

Today, as I look around Abingdon, which prides itself on its historical image and is the county seat of Washington County, Virginia, nowhere can I find any street signs or any other monuments honoring Billy Webb, or Henry Crigger, Robert Cooke, Harold Sturgill, Carl Sexton, or Johnny Wright, just some of the Washington County boys who died in Vietnam.

Nor can I find any sign honoring Charles Luther “Shorty” Brown, Bobby Hampton, or Billy Elmore, all Washington County boys who died in Korea. Nor can I find any signs for Albert and Cleveland Perry, two Washington County brothers whose widowed mother, Mrs. Ollie Perry, learned by separate telegrams that her sons had both been killed there, one day apart. Five of Mrs. Perry’s seven sons served their country. Two gave their lives.

Nor can I find any street signs honoring Hubert Hayter, James Motley, William Hagy, Al Clark, Hurley Felty, Charles McConnell, or Glen Wolfe, who are just a few of the many Washington County boys who died serving their country in World War II.

What I do see, however, are countless signs throughout the town and county naming streets, roads and alleys for trees, Indian tribes, animals, snakes, birds, actors, politicians, flowers, fruits and nuts, but none for Billy Webb or the other Billy’s of our country.

Sadly the only monument honoring Billy is a small stone at the foot of a cold lonely grave where his remains now lie buried, hundreds of miles from his ancestral home, his friends, his family and his mama. Mrs. Webb, now a widow, heart broken, and in failing health, is no longer able to make the long difficult journey to visit her Billy, even on Memorial Day.

The only sign that we hav even coming close to recognizing any individual common soldier is the only that was placed on the side of Clinch Mountain more than 50 years ago, designating a cluster of picnic tables to Honor John Douglas, who was ambushed and killed over 200 years ago while riding horseback from Abingdon to Castlewood to warn his fellow frontiersmen of an Indian uprising. Even on this spot, however John Douglas is just a name on a sign without any story to give him a face or to tell the present or future generations of his sacrifice or why his name is even there.

Undeniably, we are allowed to be assembled here tonight due in great part to a gathering of another small group of men in the colonial town of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, about 227 years ago. These men of courage, conviction and vision came forth with new ideas and ideals to form a new nation based upon the untested principles that all men, and women are created equal and are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These principles and ideals, however noble and courageous, could never have been established and preserved but for the countless thousands of other men and women, who were not people with high rank or office, or high sounding names, or high sounding words, but were simply men and women of action and courage, and with love and fidelity for their country and were and are the thousands of the Billy Webbs of our country who have given and continue to give and pay the ultimate sacrifice of their life – their liberty – and their pursuit of happiness in order that others may be free.

Today we are again engaged in a great war, unlike any we have ever before known, waged by cowardly terrorists that challenge the very existence of our nation. An unwitting ally of the enemies of this or any nation is the complacency and indifference of its citizens, we cannot afford to forget that a price of freedom is constant vigilance. If we are to prevail and endure as a nation, we must stand fast and stand together and give proper recognition, respect and support to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guardsmen, whose ranks are filled with the Billys and Billie Jeans of this country, who are today and will tomorrow be waging the fight for our basic survival.

The way we treat our children, our elders, our firemen, our policemen and our soldiers is a direct measure of the character of a community. The Billy Webbs of our country must never be forgotten. If we should forget our firemen, our policemen, and our soldiers there may be a day when forget us – then all is lost and our country will be no more.

We are here tonight to propose and request a small but very important and significant symbol to recognize and honor the Billys of our country and those who are surely to follow.

I am most honored, proud and humbled to be here with some of the surviving Billys of wars past. These veterans, although no longer the young warriors they once were, nevertheless, remain young in heart, mind and spirit and forever steadfast in their unyielding fidelity and undying devotion to their country and our freedom.

On behalf of all veterans, we therefore request that the small unnamed hillside which adjoins the west of side of Cummings Street, and which is owned by the Town of Abingdon, be set aside, dedicated and consecrated in honor of all veterans and fallen soldiers, we propose that his hillside, thus hallowed, be designation and named “VETERANS MEMORIAL PARK.”

On a momentous occasion on November 19, 1863 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, President Abraham Lincoln in dedicating a small piece of ground in honor of soldiers fallen there, spoke the following words which still ring true and are most appropriate here tonight: “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”

Now we submit to you this simple but most profound request and sincerely state: It is altogether fitting and proper that you should do this. This small honor to our veterans and our lost service men and women and their families is long overdue. The community that pays respect to its soldiers gives respect to the community. The decision is yours. The time is now.

Thank you and may God Bless America.