A former prisoner of war who spent five harrowing months in enemy captivity during World War II was recognized as Mobile’s Veteran of the Year, drawing a standing tribute from judges, lawmakers, active-duty service members and the full City Council at a Fort Whiting Armory luncheon.
The gathering, hosted by the Mobile Bay Area Veterans Day Commission, honored both a Veteran of the Year and a Patriot of the Year for 2014. Mayor Sandy Stimpson, who chairs the commission’s board of trustees, told the crowd that the port city owes an enduring debt to those who served. “Mobile is a military city,” he said, adding that the nation’s continued progress rests in large part on the veterans in the room.
The Veteran of the Year honor went to Seymour “Sy” Lichtenfeld, who has made Mobile his home since 2011. Lichtenfeld served in the U.S. Army from April 1943 until November 1945. He was just 19 when he was captured at bayonet point on the battlefield. He endured roughly five months inside a German prison camp that was eventually overrun by advancing Soviet forces, and he and six fellow captives later walked some 75 miles to reach American lines.
Lichtenfeld urged those around him to preserve their own accounts of service, as he did in his 2001 memoir. “Make the time to record or write your oral history,” he said. “Every 90 seconds throughout the country a veteran is dying and history is lost.” Reflecting on the sacrifices shared across every branch, he told fellow veterans they had “made a down payment on our cost of freedom.”
The 2014 Patriot of the Year was retired Maj. Gen. Carl McNair, a Pensacola native whose Army career spanned more than three decades and included assignments in research and development, infantry and Army aviation. His efforts to help establish the Alabama State Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Spanish Fort were singled out for praise. Dr. Barry Booth, a Vietnam veteran named Veteran of the Year in 2009, said McNair’s legacy would outlast everyone present.
McNair used his remarks to stress the importance of a strong, ready military. “Not one generation of Americans has ever missed the opportunity to serve in this nation’s defense,” he said. “Preparedness is the key to strength.” He praised the flag-waving families who lined the route of the local Veterans Day parade, saying the history of Alabama reinforces the history of the country.
The annual luncheon was backed by a coalition of civic and corporate supporters, including BAE Systems, the city of Mobile, the Mobile County Commission, the Baldwin County Commission and the Mobile County Public School System.