Once known as Armistice Day, Nov. 11 has evolved from the anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I in 1918 to Veterans Day, a time to honor everyone who has served in the U.S. military. In Branson, the celebration lasts a week, from Nov. 5 to Nov. 11.
Janice Martin and Chuck Terry are both veterans, and both work in the Branson entertainment business. And that's where their stories diverge wildly.
Chuck Terry
Chuck Terry's father was a Marine in World War II, and when he came home in 1945, his son made the decision he would follow in his dad's footsteps. The younger Terry enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1958, went to boot camp in San Diego, Calif., and spent 17 months stationed on Okinawa, traveling to Korea and Japan for what he calls "training exercises." He was an "0300" regular rifleman or infantryman, specially trained as an "0351," "rocket man or tank killer."
Terry returned to the United States in 1959 and served in a guard and military police assignment near San Francisco until he was released from active duty. He and his wife visited friends in Missouri in the early 1970s, fell in love with the idea of life on Table Rock Lake and bought a place in Kimberling City.
"We went to Silver Dollar City during the crafts festival in 1973, and we both filled out applications to work there," he remembers. "Hers was in finance, and mine was in security work. On Nov. 5, 1973, she went to work there."
Not long after, the theme park's security staff was short a man because of a family emergency, and Terry was asked to fill in for three weeks. That was 45 years ago.
"I like the people. I'm a people person," he says, so after 31 years in security -- and at the age of 78 -- he's in his 13th year in a role that suits him perfectly. As town marshal, part of his job is welcoming veterans to Silver Dollar City every morning and leading them through the opening ceremony. "That's the highlight of my whole day."
Terry says it's easy to spot the veterans because so many of them wear caps with their military affiliation, but an announcement on the town square also invites them to be recognized.
"I get them all out there and start putting ribbons on them, then I line them up and shake hands with all of them and thank them," he says. "Then I pick one to carry the flag down to the flag pole when we march down. Afterwards, they always thank me for that honor -- lots of times with tears in their eyes."
Over the years, Terry says, more and more of the veterans he meets served in Vietnam, and they are finally ready to tell their stories. "I respect those guys because of what they had to do," he says. "I'm glad to see them honored."
Asked how much longer he might work, Terry just chuckles.
"When I started here, I kind of fell in love with the Herschends," he says of the park's owners. "To me, it's just one big family at Silver Dollar City. With the gig I've got, I could do it forever."
Janice Martin
Growing up, Janice Martin didn't know anything about the military, she says. "My parents are Canadian, and my father was a preacher. Nothing military was part of our world."
All that changed serendipitously while Martin was a student at the Juilliard School in New York. She had just begun to realize that she'd soon have to get a job that would allow her to repay her somewhat overwhelming student loans, so when she saw a sign that said "Student Loan Repayment," she stopped to look -- only to find it was an Army recruiting center. She walked on, laughing, then turned around and went in. The soldier on duty had a good laugh, too, when she asked if there were violins in the Army. "I'll go look," she remembers him saying.
"He came back kind of white-faced and said, 'Not only do we have violins, but there's a job opening. Auditions are next week.'"
And that's how Martin became a violinist in Pershing's Own, the U.S. Army Band. Six months later, finished with school, she was assigned to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. -- where, she says, she learned to shoot an M-16 and went through the gas chamber, just like everybody else. "G.I. Janice," she jokes.
Playing in the band put her in front of all kinds of national and international leaders at the White House and the State Department, a "pretty exciting life," she says.
"Originally, it was just a financial thing," she admits. "But during my service, it became a lot more than that. It was an amazing experience that really changed my life."
After her enlistment was complete, she was living and performing in New York City when her agent answered a call from Silver Dollar City looking for a World-Fest violinist. "I came down, they liked what they saw," and Martin was hired on the Showboat Branson Belle, where she entertained for six years. Now, she has her own show at the Starlite Theatre on 76 Country Boulevard, where she orchestrates a "cirque" style performance, does aerial acts on silks and ropes and plays everything from country to classical on the violin, piano and guitar -- sometimes while hanging upside down from the silks. And her tribute to the military branches has been nominated as one of the best in Branson.
"I still perform, still play with orchestras in places like Boston and Philadelphia, but I don't know anywhere else in the world where I can live in a beautiful location like this and be able to do my craft and perform for people. It's just heaven for a performer, I think, in that way," she says.
NAN What's Up on 10/21/2018