The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Washington honors nation’s war dead
WASHINGTON >> Amid prayer, tears and the tolling of bells, the Washington, D.C., region marked Memorial Day on Monday with pomp and parades and solemn tributes to those who have fallen in service to the nation.
On a warm and humid day that left most flags limp at half-staff, quiet crowds thronged the monuments and memorials on the Mall, as well as Arlington National Cemetery, where President Donald Trump left a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
At the World War II Memorial, where a prayer vigil was underway, Jacki Culin, the wife of an Operation Desert Storm veteran, wept as she spoke of the sacrifices of her husband, John, and his comrades.
“I’m so proud of them,” she said, wiping away tears. “You don’t lose sight of why you’re here . . . It’s very important to these guys. They live it. They breathe it. They’re retired, but they’re not out.”
Nearby, Ray Chavez, 105, the country’s oldest survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack, sat in his wheelchair, wearing a white and blue overseas cap bearing the name of his ship, the USS Condor.
The Condor, a minesweeper, spotted and reported an approaching Japanese submarine that heralded the attack.
Chavez said that at first, the Condor sailors thought it might be an American sub, but they realized a U.S. sub would not be in such a restricted area. “Then we knew it was a foreign submarine trying to get into the harbor,” he said. The sub was later sunk.
As passersby rang a bronze memorial bell, Chavez said he was present to honor veterans who had gone before him.
Not far away, retired New York City Fire Department lieutenant Joe Torrillo stood in his blue uniform and told the story of how he was buried alive in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
Memorial Day, he said, honors those who gave their lives “so that each and every day of every single year, we Americans can say that we have a life that’s second to no other.”
And at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, members of the group Veterans for Peace took turns reading aloud parts of King’s 1967 speech at New York’s Riverside Church, where he condemned the Vietnam War.
“We consider [Memorial Day] to be a sacred day,” said Doug Rawlings, 70, a Vietnam veteran and member of the group.
“We want people to realize there’s more than” the 58,000 Americans lost in the war whose names appear on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. “As much as we recognize those lives, there are many, many people who were killed in that war.”
“We’re trying . . . to broaden the concept of Memorial Day, to enrich it, deepen it a little bit, with no disrespect,” he said.
Across Independence Avenue, at the D.C. War Memorial, which honors Washington’s 499 World War I dead, there was a display of blue and white artificial flowers left by the Scottish American Military Society.
But a century after the U.S. entry into World War I, there were few visitors to read the words etched into the cracked marble: “Those who fell and those who survived have given to this and to future generations an example of high idealism, courageous service and gallant achievement.”
Later, on Constitution Avenue, thousands of people clad in red, white and blue gathered in the afternoon heat to watch Washington’s annual parade.
In front of the National Museum of American History - on a good day for vendors of cold drinks - onlookers maneuvered to find shade beneath trees and lamp posts.
Bearded veterans rumbled by on motorcycles as graying veterans glided by in vintage jeeps. In front of and behind them, smalltown high school bands marched, their drums beating and horns booming.
Contingents from Vietnam and South Korea carried messages of thanks for the U.S. soldiers who had fought alongside their troops.
All around, miniature American flags waved.
The president’s day began as his motorcade left the White House for Arlington Cemetery around 10:40 a.m. Trump was accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence and other officials.
After the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns, Trump spoke in the adjacent amphitheater.
He offered thanks for “the brave warriors who gave their lives for ours, spending their last moments on this earth in defense of this country and of its people.”
“Words cannot measure the depth of their devotion, the purity of their love, or the totality of their courage,” he said. “We only hope that every day we can prove worthy.”
After the speech, Trump went to the cemetery’s Section 60 to visit the grave of the son of Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, according to the White House.
Kelly’s son, Marine Corps 1st Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed on patrol when he stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan in 2010.