The History
In 1967, with the sanction of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and AMVETS service organizations of Juniata County, Pa., the Juniata Veterans Council was formed. This new organization was composed of volunteer members from these groups with the purpose of coordinating veteran programs, performing burial Honor Guard ceremonies throughout the county and other veteran related projects. One of these projects was the creation of the Veterans Honor Roll List. Here the names of county veterans that served in the military dating from WW 1 forward, were recorded. Also recorded was information for service branch and era. This data was recorded manually in alphabetical order, and entered into a mechanical “flip” file (fig 1). This file was dedicated on Nov.7,1967.
Fig. 1
This flip file was placed on the first floor of the Juniata County Courthouse and was made available to the public for viewing. However, it was NOT operator friendly. The file was to be updated periodically by the county. The updates were “typed” on paper strips in a large font style. However, because of changes with personnel-both county and the Veterans Council- and the required hardware, the updating process was discontinued. The flip file was last updated sometime in the early 1970s and was subsequently soon forgotten.
Fast forward to 2016. One of the current Veterans Council members noted this flip file cabinet, now located in the basement of the Courthouse annex building. He brought it to the attention of the Council members. It was decided to update the file and make it current. This proved to be a challenging endeavor. To do this, it was necessary to take the limited data of the file and put it in a format that would be relatively easy to update and at the same time make the total list viewable by the public. Enter the internet and an online spreadsheet application. The Honor Roll List has to be viewable from the Council’s web site (www.jcveteranscouncil.org), updated automatically as names were added and corrections made and linked to the Juniata County website (www.co.juniata.pa.us).The Council also wanted to expand the data to include more information see (fig. 2) below.
Fast forward to 2016. One of the current Veterans Council members noted this flip file cabinet, now located in the basement of the Courthouse annex building. He brought it to the attention of the Council members. It was decided to update the file and make it current. This proved to be a challenging endeavor. To do this, it was necessary to take the limited data of the file and put it in a format that would be relatively easy to update and at the same time make the total list viewable by the public. Enter the internet and an online spreadsheet application. The Honor Roll List has to be viewable from the Council’s web site (www.jcveteranscouncil.org), updated automatically as names were added and corrections made and linked to the Juniata County website (www.co.juniata.pa.us).The Council also wanted to expand the data to include more information see (fig. 2) below.
Fig. 2
Due to the passage of time, many of these Honor Roll veterans have since passed on. Many family members, friends and acquaintances of these veterans have themselves passed and or memories have just faded. It was deemed to add data from the county burial records located in the county Veterans Affairs (VA) office and registered military discharge records, to help fill in the data gaps. The Council also wanted to add the names of current county and active duty veterans. To accomplish this, the Council has spread the word through newspapers and social media, requesting that veterans submit their data that has been verified by the county VA Officer, as well. Because of security concerns, the DOB-Date of Birth field will not contain data. As of this date (2ND quarter 2018), this county Honor Roll has in excess of 4800 names. Plans call for this list to be updated by volunteers, working with the county VA Officer, in the future.
This Honor Roll list is NOT an official record or document and should not be viewed as such. There are many blanks that may never be filled in, dates that may be incorrect and probably a few typographical errors. The intent of this list is to pay respect to a select group of people. The military veteran. Of course this list includes some veterans from neighboring counties as well. Many veterans also enlisted as from Juniata county but were not. This is not important. What is important is that they shall not be forgotten.
This Honor Roll list is NOT an official record or document and should not be viewed as such. There are many blanks that may never be filled in, dates that may be incorrect and probably a few typographical errors. The intent of this list is to pay respect to a select group of people. The military veteran. Of course this list includes some veterans from neighboring counties as well. Many veterans also enlisted as from Juniata county but were not. This is not important. What is important is that they shall not be forgotten.
“all gave some and some gave all”