A salute to veterans was given by the local Cowboy Poets at the Veterans Center on Saturday, Nov. 8. Kathy Smith, Farrel Bott, BT Bugland and Russ Westwood shared poems, some of which they had personally written. Gary Phillips, with his great baritone voice, entertained the audience with ballads of yesteryear.

Westwood started the program off with the “Ol’ Ragged Flag,” telling about how a town was “mighty proud of their old ragged flag.” It had a hole from where Washington fought the battle of Trenton and powder burns from when Francis Scott Key watched the attack on Fort McHenry. It received another hole from a big Bertha gun at Flanders Field, and it became threadbare and worn in Korea and Vietnam, but it is now carefully taken down and folded every night.

Kathy Smith shared a poem about a cowboy from Montana, “where the rivers run cold and deep and fast and the mountains are high under the clear blue Montana sky.” The memories of Montana stayed with him when he had to go off to war. He said, “Heaven was by his side.”

BT Bugland is the third generation of his family who has served in the military. His grandfather was in the Army infantry and wounded twice. His dad was a B-17 pilot in WWII. His mother was in the Navy and taught celestial navigation. His son was in the 82nd Airborne, and two grandsons are now serving. He read a Veterans Day card with the message: “Think not that freedom gives us rights, but opportunity to do what is RIGHT.”

BT wrote a poem, “Shipped out to Hell,” about a veteran who, upon returning home, suffers trying to understand the wounds with no scars, a medal packed in a box and memories of his brothers who never returned but whom he visits in his mind. Going to the “wall,” he tells them, “I remember you and think of you.”

Westwood recited a poem by B. Christensen, “A Veteran Died Today.” He was a quiet man who raised a family, but the honors to a politician are disproportionate to the honor of a veteran. The poem ended with “Our country is in mourning, for a veteran died today.”

Bott, who served in Vietnam, told of those who fought courageously in the trenches of Korea and Vietnam because they believed in human rights and freedom and liberty for all men. The poem ended with, “When we kneel down to pray or see our flag billowing in the breeze, let us thank them for all our freedoms.”

Smith told of the American West in the poem “The Test,” which describes the grass-covered prairies, sunsets with purple and pink skies and the rock cabin with its fireplace where the cedar is popping and cracking. Can you smell the fir trees and hear the sounds of bears, wolves or an elk herd as it thunders across the land? “You don’t have to be a cowgirl or boy or a rancher to fall in love with the West.”

On a light note, Bott told the story of a turkey with a wooden leg. The poem told about the diamondback rattlesnake that attacked a boy and the lightning bolt that lit the hay barn on fire, but that turkey saved them both. One peck to the rattlesnake and that rattlesnake was a goner. That turkey raised such a ruckus when he saw the fire that the farmer could put it out quickly. What was the ending, you ask? “You get a bird that is that valuable you don’t want to eat him for lunch!”

BT had the audience laughing as he recited “The Ride” about “Ol Buck, who got in the saddle, grabbed the reins and, barely holding on, the horse just stopped!” Why? “It was a quarter horse!”

Phillips entertained the audience and had them singing along to familiar favorites of Willie Nelson, Hank Williams and Frank Sinatra, such as “Do You Love Me True?” “King of the Road,” “On the Bayou,” “Lay Your Head Upon My Shoulders” and “Time Slips Away.”

The event was sponsored by the Mesquite Arts Council and the Virgin Valley Heritage Museum.