The morning sun glinted off granite headstones marked with small American flags across the Island’s cemeteries, where veterans of every major war since the nation’s founding have been buried.
This Veterans Day, a federal holiday that was honored Wednesday, Nov. 11, landed on a particularly meaningful year, as the nation marked its 250th anniversary since signing the Declaration of Independence and the start of the Revolutionary War, as well as the 25th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent conflicts that became the Global War on Terror.
The Island’s veterans have served in these bookends of American history, from the founding of the country to the modern conflicts that exploded after 9/11 and that still simmer in adjacent fires in the Middle East ,from Iran to Israel-Palestine. And sadly, the conflicts keep rolling, as the Middle East continues to roil, and as the Trump administration continues to bang the drums of war against Iran. On Memorial Day this year, the Rev. Stephen Harding, pastor of Grace Church in Vineyard Haven, recited a short prayer and asked the room to remember the 13 service members who were killed recently during the conflict between the U.S. and Iran.
So the violence of war is the continuum of our history, and while the service of those who fight in war must be remembered, so too must we remember the debt we owe to care for them. President Abraham Lincoln’s famous words from his second inaugural address about the fallen are etched in marble atop the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) building in Washington, D.C.: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”
Today, this promise is enshrined not only atop the VA, but is at the center of the promise we make to each service: Members of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard pledge to never leave a fallen comrade behind. After their service, the VA works to fulfill this same promise.
It is fair to ask ourselves if the country is truly living up to that promise to our veterans. The Trump administration cut some 28,000 employees from the VA, about 6 percent of the total staff, in early 2025, and the administration, in the name of cost-cutting, has laid off thousands of veterans who worked in government agencies. Indeed, many of the sweeping cuts to social services programs disproportionately impact veterans, according to research by Jamie Rowen, an associate professor of legal studies and political science at UMass Amherst. They have also curtailed numerous benefits to veterans, most pointedly a program to help veterans afford housing. An NPR investigative report, which aired last month, found that “thousands of military veterans with VA-backed mortgages have been hit with higher interest rates and monthly payments since last year, when the Trump administration shut down a low-interest program designed to help them.” Federal cuts were also felt on the Island, and cut funds for a veterans support group were substituted by private donations.
These are promises that we owe veterans, and in the aftermath of the sweeping blue wave that has been widely seen as a rebuke to the Trump administration, it is clear the Democratic Party will now have a challenge ahead in restoring these programs and getting back on track to honoring veterans with the support the country owes them.
One local effort to honor veterans that is worthy of mention and praise is the new 12-unit veterans housing project in Oak Bluffs currently under construction, the first of its kind on the Island. It’s a collaborative effort between Martha’s Vineyard Community Services (MVCS), Island Housing Trust (IHT), and the Hyannis-based Cape and Islands Veterans Outreach Center (CIVOC), as our news team points out in this edition. A proud shout-out to the two men who spearheaded the project: Tom Bennett, who served as a U.S. Air Force medic, and is currently the MVCS director of veteran services, and Bob Tankard, who served the U.S. Army in Korea, and is the MVCS veterans outreach advocate.
The country as a whole and the entire Island will need to keep working to support local initiatives like this one, and to hold our national leadership accountable for restoring all that is owed to veterans. Beyond the important programmatic support, there is also a need to support veterans who take an oath to serve the Constitution above and beyond the executive branch. That oath is sacred, and it may soon be coming into play as a movement gets traction to hold the Trump administration, particularly Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, accountable.
That is worth pondering as the Island honors its veterans from the Revolutionary War to the modern conflicts in the Middle East. One of the oldest cemeteries on Martha’s Vineyard is Tower Hill, located in Edgartown, where the names of veterans of the Revolutionary War are marked and typically buried with family members. Time has worn smooth many of the 18th century tombstones, and the museum has marked them with a special Revolutionary War insignia.
At Oak Grove Cemetery, there are two large granite boulders with bronze plaques that honor the fallen who served in “the World War” from 1917 to 1919. That plaque was erected before we called it World War I, which it was named only after World War II unfolded. The more recent plaque includes an honoring of those who served in the Korean War and in the Vietnam War. And this year on Memorial Day, JoAnn Murphy, commander of Post 257, read a list of Vineyard veterans who died in the past year.
All of the men and women who have served in those wars through the nation’s 250 years of history were honored yesterday, but all of us carry the responsibility to honor their sacrifice every day, and make sure our elected leaders do as well.
