MD22

Remembering those who served MEMORIAL DAY 2022 Presented by

The Chronicle & The Chief

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Memorial Day 2022

Jeremy C. Ruark Publisher / Executive Editor Zoe Gottlieb General Assignment Reporter

2022 Memorial Day Observances

Katherine Mace Marketing Consultant

As our communities mark Memorial Day 2022, the spirit to honor and recognize our fallen military heroes, our veterans and the men and women now serving in America’s Armed Forces, is as strong as ever.

The day itself was established in 1883 and declared a national holiday by an act of Congress in 1971.

It is a day to reflect the sacrifices by the people who have served our nation, those who given their lives in the line of duty, and those in the Armed Forces today.

We are honored to dedicate this special section to those people we call heroes.

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To those who fought, to those who tried, to those who gave their very lives.

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Memorial Day 2022

MEMORIAL DAY: PAUSE TO HONOR KELLY FITZPATRICK Guest Column

Memorial Day is a day when we stand united as one nation to pause and to remember. We pause to honor those service members who died while in service to this nation — in service to us all — to preserve and defend our individual freedoms.

Since the Civil War, almost 6,000 Oregonians have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to this nation. On Memorial Day, we honor them and the more than 1.2 million service members who have given their lives nationwide.

This year, our agency will, for the first time in three years, have the chance to once again gather for an

in-person Memorial Day ceremony at the Oregon World War II Memorial in Salem.

This memorial honors the more than 3,700 Oregonians who gave their lives in World War II. We — as veterans and Americans — who came after them, owe so much for their sacrifice and the peace and stability that they helped secure for our nation and the world.

Each and every one of their names is forever engraved on the granite walls that line this remarkable memorial. If you have the chance, I encourage you to visit this site and spend some time reflecting on their sacrifice.

And as you walk any veteran memorial and remember those to whom it is

dedicated, I urge you to also pause and remember those service members who came before and those who came after. This year’s ceremony is dedicated not to a particular generation of service members or conflict, but to all Oregonians — throughout time — who wore the uniform and, especially, those nearly 6,000 individuals and their families who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedoms and our way of life.

Every service member had a story, and many faced additional challenges beyond the common trials and tribulations of war. Some were poor and uneducated.

Some were privileged, with college or advanced degrees.

Some were working men

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and women, with spouses and families. Some were 15and 16-year-olds who lied about their dates of birth just to enlist.

Some were Black or mixed race, Hispanic or Latinx, Asian American or Pacific Islander, and they volunteered to serve a country that did not afford them rights or opportunities equal to those of their fellow countrymen and service members at the time of their service.

Before the Korean War, our military served in segregated units, and many endured prejudice and bigotry from their own country even as they risked their lives and freedom to protect it.

Some of the courageous Oregonians who served and gave their lives in service to our country and whose memories we honor today were women who would not even be recognized as veterans of the United States Armed Forces until the 1970s. Others were quietly transgender, gay, lesbian or queer, who grappled with the pain of giving their all to a country that did not want every part of them, that did not allow them to serve openly as their true, authentic selves.

We as a nation and, especially, as veterans who followed in their footsteps, owe an additional debt of gratitude to the brave soldiers, sailors, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard members who served under these policies and conditions. Their courage, selflessness, dignity and exceptional service did much to sway public opinion and pave the way for a brighter and more inclusive future.

Kelly Fitzpatrick

On this Memorial Day, let us honor the unique loss and pain of each and every one of the 6,000 Oregonians and their families whose sacrifices we remember today.

Words cannot express our gratitude and appreciation for the brave Oregonians who willingly made these sacrifices. The enormity of their courage humbles and inspires us. This day reminds us to be better as individuals, as a community and as a nation. As long as we, as one united nation, remember their sacrifices, their loss will not have been in vain.

The Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs’ Statewide Memorial Day Celebration will be held at

Courtesy photo

11 a.m. Monday, May 30, at the WWII Memorial on the grounds of the Oregon State Capitol Building. For more information or to watch live, visit ODVA’s Facebook page.

Kelly Fitzpatrick is the director of the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs and Governor Kate Brown’s policy advisor on veterans’ issues. She is a retired Army officer.

Her military awards and decorations include multiple awards of the Meritorious Service Medal, the Southwest Asia Service Medal and the Army Parachutist Badge. She may be reached at 503-373-2389.

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Memorial Day 2022

Memorial Day Events Veterans organizations in St. Helens, Scappoose and Rainier are known to offer ceremonies each year. For specific details, contact the local VFW Halls, or the American Legion.

A traditional Memorial Day ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. at Columbia City Veterans Park, just off Highway 30.

See the schedule of this event below.

Memorial Day Program “Dawning of the Day” Mark Mullaney, Oregon Piper Master of Ceremonies Casey Wheeler, Mayor, City of Columbia City Welcome Alta Lynch, Executive Director of The Elks Veterans Bunker And Veterans Chair of the St. Helens Elks Lodge The Importance of Memorial Day Frank Hupp, US Air Force Veteran & Citizen of Columbia City Color Guard Scout Troop 106 Color Guard “To the Colors”/Flag Raising Jacob Graichen, Trumpeter/Scout Troop 106 Color Guard Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag Sue Ziglinski, Councilor, Columbia City “Star Spangled Banner” Aaron Eisenschmidt Recognition of United States Service Branch Flags US Army, US Marine Corps, US Navy, US Air Force, US Coast Guard and US Merchant Marine Representatives

Thank you for your service

“Taps”/Placement of Wreath Jacob Graichen, Trumpeter and Tom Berquam, President, St. Helens Garden Club Missing Man Table and Honors Ceremony Frank Hupp/David Beldon “What is Patriotism to Me?” Isaac Polvogt, Patriot Pen District Speech Contest Winner Honoring Our Fallen Kelly Niles, US Marine Corps Veteran & Citizen of Columbia City Prayer Michael S. McGlothlin, US Army Veteran & City Administrator “God Bless America” Aaron Eisenschmidt “Amazing Grace” Mark Mullaney, Oregon Piper “Scotland the Brave” Mark Mullaney, Oregon Piper Refreshments provided compliments of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Mt. St. Helens Chapter

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Memorial Day 2022

GOLD BOOTS, AMERICAN FLAGS TO HONOR VETERANS

Jeremy C. Ruark / The Chief Gold painted boots on display are part of the Memorial Day tribute in Clatskanie.

JEREMY C. RUARK jruark@countrymedia.net

In Clatskanie, a Memorial Day breakfast and community service are scheduled to mark Memorial Day and to recognize veterans.

The breakfast will be served between 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday, May 30, at the American Legion Hall, 596 NE 5th Street.

“We are trying to keep the cost as low as possible and are estimating the cost per person to be about $7 or $8,” Organizer Jerry Simmons said. “All the money made will be split between the Kiwanis, VFW and the American Legion. Any money left over from the

cost of the breakfast will be put towards the Clatskanie Veterans Memorial.”

The Clatskanie Veterans Memorial Ceremony will be conducted at 11 a.m. at Copes Park.

“We will read two columns, 54 names, of veterans who joined the service in Clatskanie or ones that moved here and have passed away here,” he said. “We have not been able to read the names over the past two years due to the pandemic.”

Simmons said the ceremony is an important community connection.

“It remembers the sacrifices that our citizens and our veterans have made.,” he said. “Less than 10 percent of the citizens in the

Students from Piercing Arrow School place small American flags along Highway 30 to honor veterans.

United States are veterans.

They have done an awful lot for this country.”

Simmons served 20 years in Marine Corps and the Marine Corps reserves.

Small flags The students and staff at Piercing Arrow Private School have again placed small American flags and gold painted boots along Highway 30 and at the Clatskanie Veterans Memorial at Copes Park.

Clatskanie resident Lori Sherman has led the project over the past several years.

“I believe that this project is necessary each Memorial Day to honor the ones that fought to give me

my freedoms,” she said.

“To honor means to regard or treat (someone) with admiration and respect. This is an inward attitude shown with an outward expression the best way I know how.

My father, Harold Bowles Jr. and husband, Steven C. Sherman have both served this country along with so many more. The servicemen and women who have lost their lives in the wars, I admire their courage and respect their bravery.”

Gold painted boots The boots and flags are collected and purchased from other veterans’ posts and citizens in surrounding areas. Piercing Arrow

Private School and private donations help purchase items needed but accept tax deductible donations as well, according to Sherman.

The school students and staff spend time throughout the year getting the flags and boots ready for display.

“This includes painting some boots gold,” Sherman said. “The Killed in Action (KIA) veteran boots are painted gold. I decided to paint them gold to represent the Gold Star Mothers of the veteran. It’s a distinction that no mother wants, but it’s one they wear proudly.

The American Gold Star Mothers, Inc., is a private nonprofit organization of American mothers who lost sons or daughters in service

Jeremy C. Ruark / The Chief

of the United States Armed Forces.

Sherman said the students place names on flags and laminate them.

The flags are arranged in alphabetical order by last names along Highway 30 in Clatskanie.

“This was my daughter, Whitney Horness’s idea,” Sherman said. “Because she keeps this project very organized and wanted the students to be able to execute it each year with now over 2,100 plus flags.”

If you would like a flag for a military member deceased or living, contact Sherman at 360-431-7910.

Flags are displayed on Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day.

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Memorial Day 2022

RUN FOR THE WALL: LOCAL VETERAN JOINS NATIONAL EVENT JEREMY C. RUARK jruark@countrymedia.net

St. Helens resident Doug Walker is taking part in the annual Memorial Day weekend event, Run For the Wall, in Washington, D.C. The event recognizes veterans and is an effort to help raise awareness for prisoners of war (POWs) and those service members missing in action (MIA).

History The run began in 1989 after a retired sergeant from San Diego assembled a group of motorcycle riders to travel from southern California to Washington, D.C. to participate with the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally designed to maintain awareness of POWs and MIAs, accord-

Veterans and others gather adjacent to the Washington Memorial during a previous Run to the Wall.

ing to Walker.

The event has evolved into an annual tradition that brings together thousands of veterans and others from around the nation. Walker will join other Oregonians and an estimated 1,300 participants leaving from

Honoring the ultimate sacrifice of all those in Columbia County who died while serving in the military. www.sthelensoregon.gov

Ontario, California.

Because this will be such a large event, Walker said there will be three separate groups taking three separate routes across the country to Washington, D.C. Along the way, people show their support by displaying American

flags.

The participants will meet the Friday before Memorial Day in Arlington, Virginia.

“An event is scheduled Saturday morning, May 28, at the Arlington National Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Solider and from

Courtesy from Doug Walker

there we go to the Lincoln Memorial for a group photo of all three groups and from there they walk over to the Vietnam Memorial Wall for a ceremony to complete the mission and that is the end of the event.”

Walker said the event is

quite emotional, especially for those men and women who served in the Vietnam War. “Vietnam veterans didn’t get a very good welcome home,” he said.

Walker said the Vietnam veterans came back from the war in the 60s and 70s to face a tremendous antiwar movement and never got the recognition that occurred after World War II where there were parades and big events to welcome all the soldiers home.

Healing event “So, this event (Run for the Wall) has become a healing event for veterans who didn’t receive that welcome home and they are also with

­­­­

See WALL Page 7

Honoring those who served

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Memorial Day 2022

WALL

From Page 6 many like-minded people, so there is a very healing feeling being able to just communicate and be around others with similar emotions.”

Walker said the Vietnam veterans visiting the Memorial Wall will experience “tremendous emotions” because they were involved in the war, and they will likely be joined by family members and friends who lost loved ones in the Vietnam conflict.

“It’s just a very, very emotional experience,” he said. “I am a Vietnam vet and it is pretty emotional for me, that’s for sure, because I am thinking about the 58,000plus names on the wall (that) didn’t come home.”

Walker describes his time in the military service as something he is very proud

of, “but not being recognized for that back in the 60s and 70s was pretty hard to take at that time,” he said.

Attitude change The attitude has changed across America today, according to Walker.

“With the change in most attitudes by American citizens regarding our returning service men and women that welcome that we didn’t get then, we are getting now, and we are also making sure that returning veterans from the present-day conflicts are not treated the same way we were back in the 60s and 70s,” he said.

Walker said the Run for the Wall is also important beyond a healing event.

“It is a way for us to keep the pressure on the U.S. government to keep trying to find our MIAs and our KIAs and to return them

home,” he said. “That’s very important for the families who lost their loved ones.

So, by spreading this message across the country we are helping maintain awareness through social media, newspapers and television that those soldiers are not all home yet.”

According to Walker, there are more than 100,000 soldiers that have not been re-patriated.

“Many are at the bottom of the ocean and may never be found, but they are still finding soldiers in the jungles of Southeast Asia and even some from World War II in European countries and the Pacific Islands,” he said.

Walker will be piloting a chase truck during his participation in the 10-day run.

“I will be supporting the others by driving along and if a motorcycle breaks down in the run along the route, I

Thank You for your Service

Courtesy from Doug Walker Supporters gathered on freeway bridges to show support for the Run For the Wall project.

will load up that motorcycle and take it to a shop,” Walker said. “We are not going to leave anybody on the side of the road.”

During a fourth Run for the Wall called the Sand Box

Run, dedicated to veterans in the U.S. conflicts in the Middle East, Walker will participate in the Alaskan Airlines Fallen Soldier Cart escort to Marseilles, Illinois before the Memorial Day

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Walker credits his wife for also supporting the Run for the Wall.

“I am pretty proud of what we are doing,” Walker said.

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Memorial Day 2022

THE HISTORY OF MEMORIAL DAY

Courtesy CCMA Verlene Ross Collection Veterans gathered in St. Helens for Memorial Day Parade and Celebration near the corner of South First and St, Helens Streets May 26, 1919.

STAFF REPORT chroniclenews@countrymedia.net

Memorial Day took shape in many forms for years prior to its formal establishment, in 1873, New York State formally recognized Memorial Day by making the day a legal holiday on the state’s calendar—other states started following suit.

Then, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday in 1971 by an act of Congress, though it was formerly known as Decoration Day because mourners would place flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers they were memorializing—which defined the holiday as a time to memorialize the people who died while serving in the U.S. military.

The holiday, which was once observed every May 30, is now observed on the last Monday in May, and for many, it unofficially marks the beginning of summer.

The date is not without controversy for this reason— some veterans groups, concerned that more Americans associate the holiday with the first long weekend of the summer and not its intended purpose to honor the nation’s war dead, continued to lobby for a return to the May 30 observances.

Memorial Day has its

roots in the anniversary of the Civil War ending in 1865. By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.

Among historians, the consensus is unclear about where exactly this tradition originated; numerous different communities may have independently initiated the memorial gatherings—including African American soldiers who had served in the war and now celebrated their freedom from white slave owners in the North and the South.

According to American historian Barbara Maranzani, on May 1, 1865, more than 1,000 people recently freed from enslavement, accompanied by regiments of the U.S. Colored Troops (including the Massachusetts 54th Infantry) and a handful of white Charlestonians, gathered in the camp to consecrate a new, proper burial site for the Union dead. The group sang hymns, gave readings and distributed flowers around the cemetery, which they dedicated to the “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

Records show that one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations was organized by a group of formerly

enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865.

Nevertheless, in 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day. As a tradition over the years, cities and towns across the United States host Memorial Day parades and other events each year, often incorporating military personnel and members of veterans’ organizations. Families hold barbecues and graveside services, and Veterans of Foreign Affairs (VFW) posts gather to memorialize their fellow soldiers.

Some wear a red poppy in remembrance of those fallen in war—a tradition that began with the World War I poem, “In Flanders Fields,” by John McCrae.

Despite the increasing celebration of the holiday as a summer rite of passage, there are some formal rituals still on the books, Maranzani wrote.

• The American flag should be hung at half-staff until noon on Memorial Day, then raised to the top of the staff.

• Since 2000, when the U.S. Congress passed legislation, all Americans are encouraged to pause for a National Moment of Remembrance at 3 p.m. local time.

• The federal government has also used the holiday to honor non-veterans—the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on Memorial Day 1922.

For more information, contact the Rainier Oregon Historical Museum at 360751-7039. The Columbia County Museum Association may be reached at 971-2253971.

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