Wreath ceremony honors veterans

Other participants ranged from aging veterans to highschool students, including the Peters Township boys baseball team, whose members organized the excursion. “These people fought for our freedoms,” said Nolan Thompson, a senior on the team. “This is the least we can do to pay them back.”

Also present, and numbering several dozen strong, were members of the American Legion Riders, veterans and motorcycle enthusiasts who participate in honor guards and other events. “We ride our motorcycles — although not today — to help vets any way we can,” said Mark O’Donnell, a rider from Zelienople.

The weather was brisk, with temperatures around freezing and a stiff wind snapping the nearly twodozen flags being borne by riders during a brief ceremony before the wreath laying.

But many participants recalled worse weather in previous years, including an ice storm last winter.

Attendees included state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, who represents the area, as well as former congressman Tim Murphy and state Rep. Rick Saccone, who is running to replace Mr. Murphy in a special election next spring.

Ms. Bartolotta urged the crowd to utter the names on each marker that they decorated: Veterans, she said, die twice — the second being “when their names are spoken for the last time.”

For some, those names were all too familiar. Jackie Hendricks of Imperial came to lay a wreath on the grave of her uncle, Pete Trusnovic, who had been a private first class in Korea.

“I grew up in a family that you went to visit these cemeteries,” Ms. Hendricks said. Her uncle, she added, “would be so happy to see all these people here.”