Celebrate and honor

For retired Cedar Grove-Belgium teacher Morreen Mersberger, the definition of a veteran is more than someone who served in the armed forces.

It goes more to a veteran’s purpose, she said.

“They gave their time and service to preserve and protect our freedom and our lives. They allow you to pursue your goals and dreams,” she told students in the high school gym during the annual Veterans Day ceremony on Monday.

A veteran is “someone who at one point in his or her life wrote a blank check made payable to the U.S. for an amount up to and including their life.”

“That,” she said, “is honor.”

Mersberger shared the famous story of a teacher in Little Rock, Ark., who one day had all the desks removed from her classroom and hours later had a veteran carry each one in after students couldn’t figure out who allowed them to have those desks.

“You didn’t earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you,” she said. “Now it’s up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so you could have the freedom to get an education.”

Mersberger thanked all of America’s veterans, especially those from the Vietnam War who didn’t get the warm welcome home they deserved. She also singled out Cedar Grove’s Gordon Moen, a World War II veteran who is 97 years old.

“I think more should be done with it,” Moen said after the ceremony of teaching children about veterans’ sacrifices, adding these types of ceremonies are “wonderful.”

“I’m blessed to live this long and I’m so happy and proud I could serve my country,” he said.

Cedar Grove-Belgium High School is no stranger to military service. Nine students from the class of 2019 — 11% of graduates — planned to enter the armed forces.