For at least one former soldier, Veterans Day is more than an occasion to honor military members who served their country but also to recognize that preserving liberty can mean enlisting with a higher power.
Those are the sentiments Jonathan Mallard shared with the crowd assembled Tuesday on Veterans Plaza, adding Veterans Day “is not about looking back but looking forward. It’s about asking what we will do with the freedom that others have paid for with their lives.”
Mallard, an Army combat medic, served 16 years before being medically retired as a sergeant in 2020. He saw deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with the 772nd Forward Surgical team, assisting in life-saving surgeries near combat zones and supporting wounded service members until they could be evacuated.
But there was a time, Mallard told the audience, when “looking forward” wasn’t in his plans.
Having witnessed the worst of war in his role as a medic, Mallard said he came home from the hostilities and tried to cope with the aftermath of seeing how quickly the sanctity of life can vanish.
“I did not know how to live with the weight of it anymore,” an emotional Mallard told the crowd. “I found myself sitting in the Home Depot parking lot here in Boerne, ready to end my life.”
But God intervened, he added.
“He sent someone just at the right time, through simple conversation — someone who cared enough to check in on me and pray with me,” Mallard said. “That was the beginning of my restoration.”
Mallard told of his eventual baptism in the Guadalupe River “still wearing my uniform when I stepped in the water.”
The baptism marked a new kind of enlistment for Mallard — “a spiritual commissioning,” he said.
“It was my surrender to a higher command” — drawing similarities to his previous years of military service — “a life I had nearly thrown away now belongs solely to God.”
Mallard’s years of service to his country led him to his service to God, he said. The veteran is pursuing a degree in theology in preparation for a future ministry and community work.
“Many people connect Veterans Day with Memorial Day, and they should,” he told the crowd, many of whom wore the uniforms, hats, jackets, patches or insignia of the military branches they served. “The two are tied together by a relationship forged in blood.”
He added, “Memorial Day honors those who gave us everything; Veterans Day reminds (those of us) who remain, to live our lives in a way that their sacrifice is worth the cost that was paid.”
He urged his fellow veterans to go forward in their lives as earnestly as they did when they wore their uniforms.
“Serve with the same courage you once showed in uniform. Live lives that make the sacrifices of our brothers and sisters worth the cost,” he added.
American Legion Post 313 Commander Steve Simon then conducted a roll call, acknowledging 15 area military members who had died since last Veterans Day.
Anthony White, commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 688, acted as master of ceremonies for the service. He recognized two World War II veterans on hand, Ed Mergele, who served in the Navy, and Bill Mayo, a veteran of the Army Air Corps.
He also paid tribute to Gold Star families whose immediate relatives died in the line of duty while serving in the armed forces.
During World War I, families displayed service flags with blue stars for deployed family members. When someone died during active duty, families replaced the blue star with gold, a memorial tradition continued to this day.
Trumpeter Jim Manzo played the traditional song of each branch of the armed forces, with veterans from that branch standing to be recognized as the respective tune played.
Veterans Day, observed in the United States on Nov. 11, commemorates the Nov. 11, 1918, armistice that signaled the end of World War I. The title was changed to Veterans Day in 1954.
“Veterans Day is not about looking back but looking forward. It’s about asking what we will do with the freedom that others have paid for with their lives.”
— Jonathan Mallard, retired Army combat medic
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