Jasper in Hamilton County, Florida — The American South (South Atlantic)
Veterans Memorial
"They Gave Their Last Full Measure of Devotion to Our Nation"
Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, October 13, 2023
1. Veterans Memorial (center panel)
Inscription.
Veterans Memorial. "They Gave Their Last Full Measure of Devotion to Our Nation".
Warren Alford , US Army . Jack A. Buckles , US Army . Booker T. Bryant Jr. , US Army . Willie F. Cato , US Army . Arlester Cole , US Army . James A. Eatmon , US Navy . Joseph W. Goodbread , US Army . Obie R. Harris , US Navy . Dwight M. Hewitt , US Army . J.B. Hill , US Army . James W. Hinton III , US Army . Harold F. Hysmith , US Marines . Leroy Langford , US Army . Floyd M. Mikell , US Army . Billy Register , US Army . Charles D. Sandlin , US Navy . Willie F. Smith , US Army . Harley M. Simmons , US Army . Lynwood A. Tipton , US Marines . Charles L. Worley Jr. , US Navy . James H. Bass Jr. , US Marines . Paul W. Burnett , US Army . Charles W. Bryant , US Army . Alton C. Christie , US Army . Ernest J. Corbett , US Army . Ike Gandy , US Army . Clarence Griffis , US Army . Arthur W. Henderson , US Army . Clarence M. Hill , US Army . Fredrick D. Hinton , US Army . Clarence B. Hughes , US Army . Donald W. Knowles , US Army . Pafford W. Mcintosh , US Army . Robert L. Phillips , US Army . Roy C. Register , US Army . Merdick A. Sills , US Army . Bill Simmons , US Army . Jack W. Simpson , US Army . Williams E. Williams , US Army . Kenneth L. Zipperer , US Army. , While many of the early settlers of Hamilton Co. were veterans of the American Revolution or later Indian Wars, the first national war to enlist large numbers of local men was the Civil War. Once secession was announced local militias seized federal arsenals and forts before being incorporated into the Confederate Army. Men from Florida saw duty in all theaters of the bloodiest war in American history. Most Hamilton Countians served in the Eastern theater in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, but many others served in the West in the Army of Tennessee, and in the local fighting in Florida. , Florida troops serving in the Army of Tennessee fought in the Battles of Shiloh, Perryville, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, Franklin, and Bentonville. Retreating into the Carolinas after being repulsed at Nashville, Florida troops in the Army of Tennessee surrendered after the Battle of Bentonville. Most of the Hamilton County men in Lee’s Army served in the 2nd FL Infantry. They fought in the 7 Days Battles, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. On the 2nd day of Gettysburg, Hamilton County soldiers charged Seminary Ridge but could not hold it. , In Florida the US military had begun plans for invasion of the interior. Gathering local men, Gen Joseph Finnegan managed to field a brigade of Floridians who repulsed US forces at the Battle of Olustee. Following Olustee, Finnegan transported his brigade North to Lee’s Army to augment the depleted Florida forces there. The majority of Florida troops fought their final battle of the war at Sailor’s Creek where most of them surrendered. The rest of Lee’s Army laid down their arms three days later at Appomattox. , The turn of the 20th century saw great changes that were underway for Florida's military organizations. The old militia system had been replaced by the National Guard system which often meant that regionally homogenous units would not find their way to the battlefield. In spite of that, Florida troops would still continue to fight together, as occasions would allow. By 1917, the U.S. could no longer maintain neutrality in the Great War raging in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the world's oceans. Congress' declaration of war against Germany meant that Hamilton County men would again be pressed into service. Whether by volunteering, or being called in the draft, thousands of Floridians entered US service. While world war one saw limited fighting in the air, the US Navy and Merchant Marine had to find a way to break the German submarine blockade of France and England. While the forces afloat worked to open the sea lanes, the US Army had to raise and train a large, modern ground force. Men from Florida poured into training bases. It would take a year for any large contingent of Florida troops to reach the frontlines in France. Finally, in the fall of 1918, Florida Army troops began arriving in France, but organizational requirements caused them to be broken up and fed into the line as replacements. Floridians in world war one had to cope with the first ‘modern’ war. Machine gun and shell fire forced them to live continually in earthen trenches. , Multi-day artillery bombardments meant they often had to hide underground. German poison gas necessitated wearing gas masks to avoid a grisly death. The area between the trenches was unsafe by daylight, which caused night patrols to have bloody, close-quarters clashes in the darkness. By the time they arrived at the front though, the Allies were advancing, which meant Florida troops spent much of their combat time attacking German trenches with the help of tanks and aircraft. By November of 1918, the Germans were forced to ask for an armistice, ending the war. , Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Hamilton County men were forced into a Second World War. In many ways, World War II was two separate wars fought simultaneously: one against Nazi Germany in Europe, and the other against Imperial Japan across the Pacific Ocean. World War II would also require Hamilton County men to fight on land, in the air, and at sea. President Franklin D Roosevelt had already instituted a draft in the event of war, but the Pearl Harbor attack caused increased volunteerism across the nation. , No matter the theater or mode of combat, in 1941 Hamilton County men answered the call to fight against tyranny in the most terrible war ever fought. Like in world war one, those who joined the Navy and served in the Atlantic had to clear German U-boats to allow for men and supplies to reach Europe. Florida itself became a battlefield with sailors and naval aviators fighting German submarines right off the Florida coast. , Naval personnel in the Pacific had the daunting task of reducing the Japanese Navy and did so through a series of surface and aerial battles. Battles also raged in the air, both over land and water. Pilots and their ground crews worked and fought to gain air superiority over the Axis territories and then bombed their war facilities. Frostbite, bursting shells, and sharks were just some of the dangers these men faced. For those fighting on land in Europe, the war was a series of invasions. , Most of these were amphibious, requiring strenuous training. First in the heat of the North Africa, and then in the mountainous passes of Italy, US forces slogged forward against heavily entrenched Axis opponents. But the Allies breached Hitler's “Fortress Europe” at the Normandy coast to help liberate France. They then held out in the bitter snows of the Ardennes against the Nazis' last assault during the Battle of the Bulge. When the Allies entered Germany in the spring of 1945, the Nazi regime crumbled, and Germany sued for peace. , The bulk of Floridians, however, were bound for the Pacific theater, mostly as part of the Army's 31st Division. The unit fought with distinction in New Guinea where it was first called on to hold the area in the face of massive Japanese counterattacks. This included the 124th Regiment's fighting in the Battle of Driniumor River. They then had to attack the Japanese and eject them from Western New Guinea. In 1945, these Floridians landed on the island of Mindanao, as part of the liberation of the Philippines. Heavy fighting in the jungles and villages ensued with the Japanese eventually surrendering in August of 1945, thereby ending the war. , The bitter peace caused by the beginning of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union following the end of world war two broke into open conflict in 1951. Communist North Korea invaded the Republic of Korea to the South in an attempt to unify the peninsula under Communist rule. The US responded by sending troops to help maintain South Korea’s independence. Here in Hamilton County this meant the reactivation of the 31st Division. Like in world war one, many of the Florida troop units were broken up and sent into the fighting in Korea across the combat zone. Fighting on the ground in Korea for both the Marines and the Army caused unique problems for the men of Hamilton County. Not only did they face swarms of North Koreans, and eventually Chinese, soldiers attacking in human waves, but the cold, mountainous terrain itself became an enemy. Many battles were fought far from bases which caused additional hardships. Hills were sometimes taken by troops mounted on helicopters, with tanks and artillery operating in the valleys below. The war’s strategic nature as a secondary theater in the Cold War meant that reinforcements were often slow in coming. Many positions taken with difficulty were lost to the enemy, only to be retaken later. , This back and forth action for much of the war eventually settled into a frustrating stalemate. Florida also produced the 159th Fighter Squadron that served in the Korean War. After training in Jacksonville and California, the squadron was sent to the Korean theater to participate in the fighting. The pilots and their ground crews fought in a number of ground attack and air superiority missions during the war. They bombed railway and road targets and shot down a number of enemy fighters in the first conflict to see jet aircraft tangling in the skies. , The Cold War again flared into a hot conflict in Southeast Asia. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered an escalation in Vietnam to prevent North Vietnamese Communists from conquering South Vietnam. Unlike previous wars in the 20th century, Florida troops were not sent to the conflict in state or local units. This meant that Hamilton County men found themselves in combat in every part of the Vietnam War. , The ground war in Vietnam saw battles in both urban and unpopulated areas. In the countryside, North Vietnamese Army troops, along with Vietcong irregulars, utilized whatever terrain was available to afflict American soldiers. The mountains and jungles teemed with hidden forces. The rice paddies and nearby villages provided human cover for enemy activity. Naval warfare sometimes meant serving on the rivers of Vietnam in close combat with the enemy. Air forces always ran the risk of being shot down and captured by a foe that proved cruel to prisoners. , Perhaps the most difficult foes were psychological rather than physical. President Johnson failed to ever provide a clear rationale for the war or even a condition for victory, which sapped morale. As the war went on, public opinion at home increasingly turned against supporting the war. This made a service member's leaving for the war and returning from it, a difficult, disheartening task. Even in fighting, the Vietcong's tendency to hide amongst the civilians meant that American troops could not be sure who the enemy was. Finally, as the US troop presence in Vietnam drew down, 1971-1975 Hamilton County men came home. , The relative peace of the previous decades was shattered on September 11, 2001, when 19 airline hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and part of the Pentagon in Washington. President George W. Bush declared a "war on terror" and men and women from Hamilton County responded to the call to serve. Their adversaries were not only the terrorists of the Al-Qaeda organization, but friendly governments and their militaries such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. While technically a global conflict, the heaviest fighting would take place mostly in the arid cities, villages, and deserts of the Middle East. , Unlike the previous wars in American history, there was no enemy government to attack. At the center was the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda had found a base of operations in Afghanistan, sheltered by the fundamentalist Islamic government of the Taliban. US forces invaded Afghanistan, knocking out the Taliban government and destroying much of Al-Qaeda by fighting in the arid mountains and valleys of eastern Afghanistan. US troops then became part of a peacekeeping force tasked with setting up a new, peaceful government in Afghanistan. , A secondary objective was Iraq's dictatorship led by Saddam Hussein. Floridians had already fought his regime in the Gulf War of 1991 after he had invaded neighboring Kuwait. In March, 2003, large numbers of Florida troops in the 53rd Infantry Brigade led the charge into Iraq from Jordan to remove the Hussein government. Fighting in desert terrain, Florida troops helped maintain local security in Western Iraq in 2003. , As the War on Terrorism progressed, however, insurgent forces rose against the US and its allies in the region. This caused the need for nearly continual deployments of troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Like in Vietnam, terrorist groups would often hide amongst civilians, making battlefield identification difficult. Desert terrain, urban fighting, and long periods away from home made this fighting in the Middle East demanding in the extreme.
Warren Alford — US Army • Jack A. Buckles — US Army • Booker T. Bryant Jr. — US Army • Willie F. Cato — US Army • Arlester Cole — US Army • James A. Eatmon — US Navy • Joseph W. Goodbread — US Army • Obie R. Harris — US Navy • Dwight M. Hewitt — US Army • J.B. Hill — US Army • James W. Hinton III — US Army • Harold F. Hysmith — US Marines • Leroy Langford — US Army • Floyd M. Mikell — US Army • Billy Register — US Army • Charles D. Sandlin — US Navy • Willie F. Smith — US Army • Harley M. Simmons — US Army • Lynwood A. Tipton — US Marines • Charles L. Worley Jr. — US Navy • James H. Bass Jr. — US Marines • Paul W. Burnett — US Army • Charles W. Bryant — US Army • Alton C. Christie — US Army • Ernest J. Corbett — US Army • Ike Gandy — US Army • Clarence Griffis — US Army • Arthur W. Henderson — US Army • Clarence M. Hill — US Army • Fredrick D. Hinton — US Army • Clarence B. Hughes — US Army • Donald W. Knowles — US Army • Pafford W. Mcintosh — US Army • Robert L. Phillips — US Army • Roy C. Register — US Army • Merdick A. Sills — US Army • Bill Simmons — US Army • Jack W. Simpson — US Army • Williams E. Williams — US Army • Kenneth L. Zipperer — US Army
While many of the early settlers of Hamilton Co. were veterans of the American Revolution or later Indian Wars, the first national war to enlist large numbers
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of local men was the Civil War. Once secession was announced local militias seized federal arsenals and forts before being incorporated into the Confederate Army. Men from Florida saw duty in all theaters of the bloodiest war in American history. Most Hamilton Countians served in the Eastern theater in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, but many others served in the West in the Army of Tennessee, and in the local fighting in Florida.
Florida troops serving in the Army of Tennessee fought in the Battles of Shiloh, Perryville, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, Franklin, and Bentonville. Retreating into the Carolinas after being repulsed at Nashville, Florida troops in the Army of Tennessee surrendered after the Battle of Bentonville. Most of the Hamilton County men in Lee’s Army served in the 2nd FL Infantry. They fought in the 7 Days Battles, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. On the 2nd day of Gettysburg, Hamilton County soldiers charged Seminary Ridge but could not hold it.
In Florida the US military had begun plans for invasion of the interior. Gathering local men, Gen Joseph Finnegan managed to field a brigade of Floridians who repulsed US forces at the Battle of Olustee. Following Olustee, Finnegan transported his brigade North to Lee’s Army to augment the depleted Florida forces there. The majority of Florida troops
Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, October 13, 2023
2. Veterans Memorial (left panel)
fought their final battle of the war at Sailor’s Creek where most of them surrendered. The rest of Lee’s Army laid down their arms three days later at Appomattox.
The turn of the 20th century saw great changes that were underway for Florida's military organizations. The old militia system had been replaced by the National Guard system which often meant that regionally homogenous units would not find their way to the battlefield. In spite of that, Florida troops would still continue to fight together, as occasions would allow. By 1917, the U.S. could no longer maintain neutrality in the Great War raging in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the world's oceans. Congress' declaration of war against Germany meant that Hamilton County men would again be pressed into service. Whether by volunteering, or being called in the draft, thousands of Floridians entered US service. While WWI saw limited fighting in the air, the US Navy and Merchant Marine had to find a way to break the German submarine blockade of France and England. While the forces afloat worked to open the sea lanes, the US Army had to raise and train a large, modern ground force. Men from Florida poured into training bases. It would take a year for any large contingent of Florida troops to reach the frontlines in France. Finally, in the fall of 1918, Florida Army troops began arriving in France, but organizational requirements
Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, October 13, 2023
3. Veterans Memorial (right panel)
caused them to be broken up and fed into the line as replacements. Floridians in WWI had to cope with the first ‘modern’ war. Machine gun and shell fire forced them to live continually in earthen trenches.
Multi-day artillery bombardments meant they often had to hide underground. German poison gas necessitated wearing gas masks to avoid a grisly death. The area between the trenches was unsafe by daylight, which caused night patrols to have bloody, close-quarters clashes in the darkness. By the time they arrived at the front though, the Allies were advancing, which meant Florida troops spent much of their combat time attacking German trenches with the help of tanks and aircraft. By November of 1918, the Germans were forced to ask for an armistice, ending the war.
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Hamilton County men were forced into a Second World War. In many ways, World War II was two separate wars fought simultaneously: one against Nazi Germany in Europe, and the other against Imperial Japan across the Pacific Ocean. World War II would also require Hamilton County men to fight on land, in the air, and at sea. President Franklin D Roosevelt had already instituted a draft in the event of war, but the Pearl Harbor attack caused increased volunteerism across the nation.
No matter the theater or mode of combat, in 1941 Hamilton County men answered
Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, October 13, 2023
4. Veterans Memorial
the call to fight against tyranny in the most terrible war ever fought. Like in WWI, those who joined the Navy and served in the Atlantic had to clear German U-boats to allow for men and supplies to reach Europe. Florida itself became a battlefield with sailors and naval aviators fighting German submarines right off the Florida coast.
Naval personnel in the Pacific had the daunting task of reducing the Japanese Navy and did so through a series of surface and aerial battles. Battles also raged in the air, both over land and water. Pilots and their ground crews worked and fought to gain air superiority over the Axis territories and then bombed their war facilities. Frostbite, bursting shells, and sharks were just some of the dangers these men faced. For those fighting on land in Europe, the war was a series of invasions.
Most of these were amphibious, requiring strenuous training. First in the heat of the North Africa, and then in the mountainous passes of Italy, US forces slogged forward against heavily entrenched Axis opponents. But the Allies breached Hitler's “Fortress Europe” at the Normandy coast to help liberate France. They then held out in the bitter snows of the Ardennes against the Nazis' last assault during the Battle of the Bulge. When the Allies entered Germany in the spring of 1945, the Nazi regime crumbled, and Germany sued for peace.
The bulk
Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, October 13, 2023
5. Veterans Memorial Park
(memorial is in the background, behind the center flag)
of Floridians, however, were bound for the Pacific theater, mostly as part of the Army's 31st Division. The unit fought with distinction in New Guinea where it was first called on to hold the area in the face of massive Japanese counterattacks. This included the 124th Regiment's fighting in the Battle of Driniumor River. They then had to attack the Japanese and eject them from Western New Guinea. In 1945, these Floridians landed on the island of Mindanao, as part of the liberation of the Philippines. Heavy fighting in the jungles and villages ensued with the Japanese eventually surrendering in August of 1945, thereby ending the war.
The bitter peace caused by the beginning of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union following the end of WWII broke into open conflict in 1951. Communist North Korea invaded the Republic of Korea to the South in an attempt to unify the peninsula under Communist rule. The US responded by sending troops to help maintain South Korea’s independence. Here in Hamilton County this meant the reactivation of the 31st Division. Like in WWI, many of the Florida troop units were broken up and sent into the fighting in Korea across the combat zone. Fighting on the ground in Korea for both the Marines and the Army caused unique problems for the men of Hamilton County. Not only did they face swarms of North Koreans, and eventually Chinese, soldiers
attacking in human waves, but the cold, mountainous terrain itself became an enemy. Many battles were fought far from bases which caused additional hardships. Hills were sometimes taken by troops mounted on helicopters, with tanks and artillery operating in the valleys below. The war’s strategic nature as a secondary theater in the Cold War meant that reinforcements were often slow in coming. Many positions taken with difficulty were lost to the enemy, only to be retaken later.
This back and forth action for much of the war eventually settled into a frustrating stalemate. Florida also produced the 159th Fighter Squadron that served in the Korean War. After training in Jacksonville and California, the squadron was sent to the Korean theater to participate in the fighting. The pilots and their ground crews fought in a number of ground attack and air superiority missions during the war. They bombed railway and road targets and shot down a number of enemy fighters in the first conflict to see jet aircraft tangling in the skies.
The Cold War again flared into a hot conflict in Southeast Asia. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered an escalation in Vietnam to prevent North Vietnamese Communists from conquering South Vietnam. Unlike previous wars in the 20th century, Florida troops were not sent to the conflict in state or local units. This meant that Hamilton County men found themselves in combat in every part of the Vietnam War.
The ground war in Vietnam saw battles in both urban and unpopulated areas. In the countryside, North Vietnamese Army troops, along with Vietcong irregulars, utilized whatever terrain was available to afflict American soldiers. The mountains and jungles teemed with hidden forces. The rice paddies and nearby villages provided human cover for enemy activity. Naval warfare sometimes meant serving on the rivers of Vietnam in close combat with the enemy. Air forces always ran the risk of being shot down and captured by a foe that proved cruel to prisoners.
Perhaps the most difficult foes were psychological rather than physical. President Johnson failed to ever provide a clear rationale for the war or even a condition for victory, which sapped morale. As the war went on, public opinion at home increasingly turned against supporting the war. This made a service member's leaving for the war and returning from it, a difficult, disheartening task. Even in fighting, the Vietcong's tendency to hide amongst the civilians meant that American troops could not be sure who the enemy was. Finally, as the US troop presence in Vietnam drew down, 1971-1975 Hamilton County men came home.
The relative peace of the previous decades was shattered on September 11, 2001, when 19 airline hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and part of the Pentagon in Washington. President George W. Bush declared a "war on terror" and men and women from Hamilton County responded to the call to serve. Their adversaries were not only the terrorists of the Al-Qaeda organization, but friendly governments and their militaries such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. While technically a global conflict, the heaviest fighting would take place mostly in the arid cities, villages, and deserts of the Middle East.
Unlike the previous wars in American history, there was no enemy government to attack. At the center was the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda had found a base of operations in Afghanistan, sheltered by the fundamentalist Islamic government of the Taliban. US forces invaded Afghanistan, knocking out the Taliban government and destroying much of Al-Qaeda by fighting in the arid mountains and valleys of eastern Afghanistan. US troops then became part of a peacekeeping force tasked with setting up a new, peaceful government in Afghanistan.
A secondary objective was Iraq's dictatorship led by Saddam Hussein. Floridians had already fought his regime in the Gulf War of 1991 after he had invaded neighboring Kuwait. In March, 2003, large numbers of Florida troops in the 53rd Infantry Brigade led the charge into Iraq from Jordan to remove the Hussein government. Fighting in desert terrain, Florida troops helped maintain local security in Western Iraq in 2003.
As the War on Terrorism progressed, however, insurgent forces rose against the US and its allies in the region. This caused the need for nearly continual deployments of troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Like in Vietnam, terrorist groups would often hide amongst civilians, making battlefield identification difficult. Desert terrain, urban fighting, and long periods away from home made this fighting in the Middle East demanding in the extreme.
Location. 30° 31.448′ N, 82° 57.54′ W. Marker is in Jasper, Florida, in Hamilton County. Memorial is on U.S. 41/129 just south of Chan Bridge Drive (15th Avenue Northwest), on the left when traveling south. This memorial and historical marker is the centerpiece of Veterans Memorial Park. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Jasper FL 32052, United States of America. Touch for directions.
The Korean War served as the arena for history's first air-to-air combat by jet-propelled aircraft. By the end of hostilities in July 1953, 38 USAF pilots had become aces by shooting down five or more enemy aircraft (nearly all of which were MiG-15s). The first jet-to-jet victory took place on Nov. 8, 1950, when Lt. Russell J. Brown, flying an F-80C, shot down a much faster MiG-15 over North Korea.
(Submitted on October 15, 2023, by Cosmos Mariner of Cape Canaveral, Florida.)
Credits. This page was last revised on October 15, 2023. It was originally submitted on October 15, 2023, by Cosmos Mariner of Cape Canaveral, Florida. This page has been viewed 76 times since then and 13 times this year. Photos:1, 2, 3, 4, 5. submitted on October 15, 2023, by Cosmos Mariner of Cape Canaveral, Florida.
