Veterans
Ohio has been involved in regional, national, and global wars since statehood, and veterans have been a powerful social and political force at the local and state levels. The organization of Civil War veterans, the Grand Army of the Republic, was a major player in local society and Republican politics in the last third of the 19th century. The American Veterans of Foreign Service was established in 1899 in Columbus, ultimately becoming known as the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1913. The state has produced 319 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, including the country's first recipient, Jacob Parrott.
In 1886, the state authorized the creation of the Ohio Veterans Home in Sandusky and a second one created in 2003 in Georgetown to provide for soldiers facing economic hardship. Over 50,000 veterans have lived at the Sandusky location as of 2005. Since World War One, the state has paid stipends to veterans of wars, including recently authorizing funds for soldiers of the Gulf and Afghanistan wars. The state also provides free in-state tuition to any veteran regardless of state origin at their colleges.
Read more about this topic: History Of Ohio
Famous quotes containing the word veterans:
“My gentleman gives the law where he is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I could as easily exclude myself, as him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“[Veterans] feel disappointed, not about the 1914-1918 war but about this war. They liked that war, it was a nice war, a real war a regular war, a commenced war and an ended war. It was a war, and veterans like a war to be a war. They do.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“To the cry of “follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,” Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)