Selfless in service

WASILLA — A gentle, quiet snowfall blanketed the more than 200 faithful Sunday who paid tribute to America’s past, present and future veterans at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Nearly 90 years after the Armistice ended World War I, at the time the latest war to end all wars, Wasilla’s Veterans Wall of Honor was the setting for a moving Veterans Day ceremony that evoked tears and smiles.

Aging veterans of previous engagements and their families sitting silently and straight-backed teenage ROTC members solemnly standing guard were attentive as Lt. Col. Katrina G. Pillow spoke about service and sacrifice. As commander of the Alaska Army National Guard’s 279th Brigade Support Battalion, the Eagle River resident recalled another Veterans Day at the Wasilla Veterans Wall of Honor. It was 1996 and she, then a First Lieutenant, was in charge of the firing squad detail. Eleven years later, she told about her battalion’s efforts to provide support to troops during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

“I want to thank the veterans for their personal courage, sacrifices, dedication to duty and selfless service to take up arms to fight for our country,” she said. “I am proud to be a veteran of Desert Storm and Operation Enduring Freedom knowing that I supported my country when the call came to serve and defend the freedoms of all citizens of the United States that we all enjoy.”

Knowing that freedom never comes without paying a high price, Pillow recalled providing support services to troops in Afghanistan and how no soldier who made a request had that request unanswered.

“As a veteran female officer, wife and mother of two, I have an appreciation of sacrifices that a soldier must endure when called to support a war,” she said. “It is a unique individual to accept the responsibility to put duty and country before family.”

For 18 months from April 2006 to October 2007, members of the 297th Support Battalion were stationed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, she said. While there, “We created a new call name to represent our state, unit and mission while deployed. We were called ‘Task Force Denali.’”

Task Force Denali’s mission was providing food, fuel, ammunition, maintenance and postal services to all soldiers in the regional command of south Afghanistan. The lessons of teamwork, depending on your teammates and accomplishing your mission are those that last a person a lifetime, not only during military service, Pillow said. “Always strive to be the best you can be in every situation.”

She closed by quoting Father Denis Edward O’Brien: “It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag and whose coffin is draped by the flag who allows the protester to burn the flag.”