Kansas City leaders call for peaceful transition of power at Veterans Day ceremony

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II tells the crowd that he had a speech, something about the “eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.”

But the congressman holds his notes up and puts them aside on the podium of the J.C. Nichols Auditorium at the National World War I Museum and Memorial and instead addresses the elephant in the room — a nation still hurting and divided over the recent election on a day meant to celebrate American veterans.

“I’d like to use my short time on this podium to urge those of us here to honor veterans by respecting the peaceful transition of government,” Cleaver said to a crowd of several hundred people.

The words hung in the air, and then the room broke into applause.

Celebrating both past and present veterans took on new meaning Friday, three days after a contentious election that has since inspired protests and vitriol. Public officials at the National World War I Museum’s Veterans Day ceremony used their time at the podium both to celebrate the service of those who fought to preserve the country’s democratic principles, as well as to urge Kansas Citians to return to a place of political civility to bridge their differences.

“I don’t care what side of this divide that people are on,” Mayor Sly James said. “But there can be no denying that this nation is divided. There can be no ignoring of that issue or fact. And if we ignore it, then we do so at our own peril.”

Cleaver acknowledged the disappointment many have in President-elect Donald Trump, as well as the volatile reactions of those who have protested the the next commander in chief or threatened to leave the country.

The nation, Cleaver said, must “struggle to be worthy of all the lives lost protecting this nation.”

“We don’t need to run away,” Cleaver said. “We do need to stay and find a way to respect other people’s opinions. I don’t mind political differences. I do mind derision and disrespect.”

For some, it was exactly what they needed to hear.

Mark McGuinn, 61 and a veteran of the U.S. Army, was moved to tears as he spoke about how heartbroken he was over how divided the nation has become.

“What (Cleaver) said really hit home,” McGuinn said. “It used to be that people were intelligent enough to argue their points without being so acrimonious.”

The Army had taught him to value and appreciate people of all races and backgrounds. The plumber from New Jersey. The country boy from Springfield, Mo. It also taught him that all the reasons people use to dislike or distance themselves from each other are ridiculous. Differences fall way when you are working together to serve the nation with a government system he has been so proud of.

And so he was devastated, he said, when Trump had suggested he would not necessarily accept the election results earlier this fall. And he clapped and cheered when Cleaver called for a peaceful transition of power from those protesting Clinton’s loss.

“When you are in the military, you are really proud of the way we transition government,” McGuinn said.

It’s a pride Norma J. Bradford, assistant chief of staff for the Army Reserve Affairs Combined Arms Center in Leavenworth, Kan., referenced as the keynote speaker of the museum’s Veterans Day Ceremony.

“Not only do (veterans) give up something for the sake of someone else, they do it for the sake of an entire nation,” Bradford said. “I can go around this room and ask every veteran in here something they gave up in service to this country, and that would only scratch the service.”

During the ceremony, the American Legion Band of Greater Kansas City Wind Ensemble and the Kansas City Symphony Chorus performed for an audience of veterans and their families.

Celebrations continued throughout the metro area, including in Johnson County, where veterans and their families gathered at Olathe’s Veterans Memorial Park for the county’s 30th anniversary event.

The ceremony there included a salute to veterans from World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans and active-duty military will receive free admission Friday through Sunday to the National World War I Museum and Memorial. Admission for the general public will be half off. The museum will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

At the Kansas City ceremony, James told the audience that disagreements about the value and dignity of people in this country cannot “give way to anything that denies people rights.”

“When we start doing that, we betray the very reasons why I decided to put on the uniform and veterans did, too,” James said.

National World WWI Museum and Memorial Board of Trustees chairman Thomas Butch pointed out that, 90 years ago Friday, then-President Calvin Coolidge spoke of what our monuments to wars are really commemorating at the dedication for the Liberty Memorial in 1926.

“It has not been raised to commemorate war and victory, but rather the results of war and victory,” Coolidge said then, “which are embodied in peace and liberty.”

This story was originally published November 11, 2016 at 12:37 PM with the headline "Kansas City leaders call for peaceful transition of power at Veterans Day ceremony."