Col. John C. Harris Jr. told a crowd gathered on Shawnee State University’s East Lawn how the American flag on his shoulder patch earned respect for him and his military personnel under his command in 2004-05, when he was commander of a peace-keeping task force in Kosovo, Serbia, formerly Yugoslavia.

“They refer to that place as the religious fault-line of the world,” said Harris, the keynote speaker at SSU’s 17th annual Veterans Day Recognition Ceremony Tuesday. “Muslims, Christians, Orthodox, ethnic groups....violence on all hands.” The colonel said there was an effort on the part of ethnic Albanians to destroy any evidence of the Serbs having ever been there, even though ethnic Serbs had migrated to Kosovo in the 7th century.

“They were destroying their churches, even their cemeteries,” Harris said.

It was a multinational peace-keeping task force, and armored personnel carriers of the forces of some nations were being attacked and burned.

But in the southern sector, where Harris and his troops were deployed, not a church was burned and not a cemetery touched. Nor were any of their vehicles attacked.

“We American commanders, we walk through the crowd and walk right up to those instigators and pull the leaders out and detain them. And although my men served proudly and their efforts were mighty, the treatment we received was not due to any effort on their part or mine,” Harris said.

“Our clout came from the American flag we had on the windows of our vehicles and on our shoulder patches when we got out. Every American military person who had served before me won that kind of credibility — that respect — for the American flag. It was they who earned the honor and respect that gave me and my men the ability to walk through those crowds and do what needed to be done.”

Harris, who is deputy chief of staff for personnel for the National Guard Bureau, Department of the Army and the Air Force Joint Force Headquarters, Ohio, addressed the 150 or so people gathered on the lawn for the ceremony. He asked those who are serving in the American military now to conduct themselves in such a manner that the next generation of soldiers will enjoy the same respect he did when they put the American flag on their uniforms.

Before he spoke, Harris said he talked with Sam Jackson of South Portsmouth, Ky., a veteran of World War II. Jackson had been inside the lobby of the Vern Riffe Center for the Arts on the SSU campus, where military items were displayed and recruiters for the various branches of service operated their information booths.

While serving in Europe under Gen. George Patton, Jackson had told Harris what Patton’s instructions were to the soldiers who were preparing to march into a German city the Nazi troops had retreated from.

“Mr. Jackson told me Patton told them, ‘We are here as liberators, not conquerors. If any of you touch a woman in a wrong way, I will personally shoot you.’ That is the American military today. We don’t come as conquerors, but as liberators, and in the name of democracy. Such behavior from armies is unparalleled in the world.”

Several people in the crowd said Tuesday’s ceremony gave them goose bumps down the spine, especially the singing of the National Anthem and “America the Beautiful” by Rick Bender of Portsmouth, a student at SSU; and the conclusion of the ceremony with the playing of “Taps” by Bill Holsinger of Lucasville.

Holsinger was part of the honor guard provided by American Legion Post 363 of Lucasville, which fired a 21-gun salute.

The prayer was by the Rev. Stan Webster, pastor of First and Second Presbyterian churches in Portsmouth.

David Todt, Ph.D, SSU provost, gave welcoming remarks.

Sam McKibbin, WNXT radio announcer and a retired veteran and current member of the Ohio Military Reserve, was the master of ceremony.

G. SAM PIATT can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 236.