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MORRISTOWN – The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month is the moment the armistice ending World War I was declared.
Today the day, Nov. 11, is now commemorated as Veterans Day.
But even though Veterans Day was officially held on Monday, Nov. 12 this year to make it a national Monday holiday, veterans groups around the country, and in Morristown, noted the day on its proper calendar date.
Led by veteran James Cavanaugh, the ceremony featured a keynote speech by Elizabeth M. Norman, an author, nurse and New York University professor.
Morristown Mayor Timothy Dougherty, noting temperatures were brisk that morning, wondered what it was like, “for the soldiers fighting in Europe under extreme conditions”with the little bit of clothing they had and it’s really amazing,” he said.
“We need to make sure we do everything for our veterans young and old, the funding is in place, federal and state,” he added. “There is no better service one cam give that by serving in the armed forces.”
Morris Township Mayor Peter Mancuso noted the political upheaval in the country at present.
“There’s a lot of dissension, bad feeling going on,” he said. “But when you’re in a fox hole there are no Democrats or Republicans. They are people who care about each other and about this, the greatest nation in the world.”
Kenote speaker, Elizabeth M. Norman, noted her 96-year-old mother had served with the Coast Guard in World War II, when “Rosie the Riveters” took men’s jobs to free them for combat duty. Norman’s husband, Michael Norman, served with the Marines in Vietnam.
She spoke about the 77 American nurses surrendering on the Philippine island of Corregidor to the Japanese, the largest contingent of women held as prisoners of war in American history. Stationed in Manila, capital of the Philippines, when war broke out nurses retreated to the Bataan peninsula and later south to the island of Corregidor in April 1942, meaning they missed the surrender of the peninsula and the subsequent Bataan Death March.
The nurses were sent back to Manila to a civilian prison.
“The Japanese didn’t know what to do with them. There were no women in the Japanese military,” Norman said.
There were 3,000 prisoners in Manila. The nurses worked as interns in the hospital there and would use their resources to outfox the Japanese.
Not wanting to give up their medicine they labeled quinine, use to fight malaria, as sodium bicarbonate.
“The nurses kept the quinine; the Japanese got the bicarbonate,” Norman said.
Norman interviewed many of the women for one of her books. She said they wanted the world to know one thing.
“Seventy seven women became prisoners of war in 1942; 77 women walked out of that camp in 1945,” Norman said.
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