Tuesday, 31 May 2011 04:02

Honoring Vets on Memorial Day

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Honoring Vets on Memorial Day

Memorial Day - it's for our American Veterans.

Women dressed all in white took up the first two rows of the audience at the Memorial Day Ceremony held at the Bob Stump Veteran's Affairs Center in Prescott. Several hundred people were on hand to offer their respects to the veterans who had sacrificed and given their all for their country.

The ladies dressed in white listened intently to the speakers and presenters, frequently wiping away a tear, obviously touched by the ceremony.

These ladies in white were in the 'Aisle of Honor'. They were there to place the wreaths on the stands, and represented several organizations:

Before the ladies laid the wreaths, however, a Musical Patriotic Salute was presented by the Prescott Fine Arts Association Singers. Maryann Dutton was the Director, and Kent Trostel was the pianist. Those listening nodded and tapped their toes in time to the music, stood to represent their branch of the military service and solemnly bowed their heads in honor of the veterans being celebrated.

Following the musical salute, it was fitting that the remarks from Arizona State Representative Karen Fann were powerful and thought-provoking. Here is what she said:

Distinguished guests, Honored Veterans, and my fellow citizens;

Memorial Day is the time for Americans to reconnect with their history and core values by honoring those who gave their lives for the ideals we cherish. All across America, flags will be placed on graves in cemeteries; public officials will speak of the sacrifice and the valor of those whose memory we honor.

More than a million American service members have died in the wars and conflicts this nation has fought since the first colonial soldiers took up arms in 1775 to fight for independence. Each person who died during those conflicts was a loved one cherished by family and friends. Each was a loss to the community and the nation.

The observance of this day was born of compassion and empathy in 1863. As the Civil War raged, grieving mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and other loved ones were cleaning confederate soldiers' graves; dusty, overgrown with weeds. Grieving for their own fallen soldiers, the confederate women understood that the dead union soldiers buried nearby were the cherished loved ones of families and communities far away. They cleared the tangled brush and mud from those graves as well and laid flowers on them too.

Soon the tradition of a "Decoration Day" for the graves of all fallen soldiers spread. On May 5, 1866, when the Civil War was over, Henry Welles of Waterloo, New York, closed his drugstore and suggested that all other shops in town also close up for a day to honor all soldiers killed in the Civil War, union and I confederate alike. It was a gesture of healing and reconciliation in a land torn apart by conflict.

Sixteen years later, in 1882, our nation observed its first official Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember and honor the sacrifice of those who died in all our nation's wars.

Sadly, many Americans have lost this connection with our history. For a growing percentage of the American people, Memorial Day has come to mean simply a three-day weekend for camping, bar-b-ques, or shopping at a mall.

However, as we see here today, your presence at this event shows our remembrance for the true meaning of Memorial Day. You come here to honor our fallen comrades. As we look across Highway 69, we see the Prescott National Cemetery. Over three thousand men and women who sacrificed for our country are buried there. Their passage is marked with headstones and tiny fags that flutter in the breeze. They will be forever in our memory, forever in our hearts, and we will be forever thankful to them.

Looking to that hallowed ground, we ask ourselves, can the price those men and women paid ever be fully appreciated? And what of those who are here with us today who face a life of disability and pain? Those who have been disabled in the service of our nation bear a burden of diminished ability, not diminished spirit. They are a reflection not of what has been lost but what can be gained; what can be achieved despite disability.

Our disabled veterans should be honored and respected just as those who sacrificed their lives. They too have served in making this nation great. They too have made difficult sacrifices for our nation's freedom.

We are here today because we understand that on Memorial Day we honor the ideals and values these soldiers stood for and died defending.

We honor them, not for their sakes alone, but for our own.

Words cannot repay the debt we owe these men and women, but through our actions, we must strive to keep faith with them and the vision that led them to their final sacrifice. That vision was, and still is, a country of freedom..... Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to bear arms, freedom to protect ourselves from foreign threats who wish to do our country and citizens harm. Their lives remind us that freedom is not cheap. It has a cost. That cost is the willingness to sacrifice their lives so that others might live.

What is it that inspires and enables ordinary citizens to rise to the challenge of battle, to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of their lives in service to their country? What is it that motivates them to respond and contribute wherever and whenever called upon to do so?

The answer is values. The proud legacy of our military branches is grounded in these core values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless-service, honor, integrity and personal courage.

*Loyalty means to bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

*Duty means to fulfill your obligations.

*Respect means to treat people as they should be treated.

*Selfless-Service means to put the welfare of the nation before your own.

*Honor means to live up to all of the military values.

*Integrity means to do what's right, legally and morally.

*Personal courage means to face fear, danger, or adversity, whether physical or moral.

It is these values which will keep our nation strong.

Many of you have heard these words of Charles Province before, but have you truly listened to them? I ask you now to close your eyes for a moment and listen to his words as if you were hearing them for the first time:

"It is the Soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us Freedom of the Press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us Freedom of Speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the Freedom to demonstrate,
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer,
Who has given us the right to a fair trial;
And it is the Soldier- who salutes the flag,
Who serves the flag, and
Whose coffin is draped by the flag-
Who allows the protester to burn the flag."

As we honor their memory today, let us pledge; their lives, sacrifices, and valor shall be remembered for as long as God gives life to this nation. We must do our utmost to carry out what may have been their last wish: that no other generation of men and women will ever have to share their experiences and repeat their sacrifice.

As President John F. Kennedy said of our nation's veterans: "Without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should remember the courage with which men have lived"

So, for at least today, let us honor and revere those who gave their lives so that we all may live in freedom.

And, as we do so, we will build the foundation of just treatment of the veterans of tomorrow.

Thank you and God Bless America.

 

And then the ladies in white stepped up and walked to the area where they placed their wreaths, one by one, quietly, carefully. Immediately a rifle volley followed - a Salute to the Fallen by the American Legion Post 6 Honor Guard and the Arizona Rough Riders.

As the clear, wistful notes of Taps were heard next, one bugler at one side of the audience, another bugler answering from the other side, it was a solemn finishing touch to yet another service honoring the American veterans who reside in our communities and our hearts.

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Published in Prescott
Lynne LaMaster

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