FLAGS HONOR FALLEN VETERANS
‘Level of service’: Lansdale, North Wales families participate
WEST CONSHOHOCKEN >> Community members came out on a sunny Saturday morning to Calvary Cemetery to honor veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Hosted by the VFW Post 1074, around 80 people helped place flags at grave sites at the cemetery in West Conshohocken.
“I just think it was a good gesture to help out for Memorial Day, and just really understand what it’s really all about,” said Michael Sasso, of Lansdale.
Sasso, his wife, Alicia and children Michael, 10, Julian, 8, and Anya, 5, were traversing the cemetery looking for gravesites of service members without flags so they could plant them.
“It just means respecting their memory and what they gave to us,” Alicia said, as she got a bit choked up. Michael served in the Marine Corps in the late 1990s, and was overcome with emotion thinking about friends he served with who lost their lives.
North Wales resident Greg Koder, a fellow Marine, expressed a similar sentiment.
“I’m a veteran and I just wanted to pay respects to the people that had fallen before me,” Koder said.
Koder, who served in the Marine Corps from 1984-88, participated the flag planting event on behalf of his company, SEI Investments’ veterans group, SEI Salutes.
With a collection of American flags in one hand, he took a moment to reflect as he stopped at a gravesite.
“I think it’s important because so many people have sacrificed for our freedom, and we don’t want to forget those sacrifices, and it’s important to carry on, and remember what people sacrificed over time, and to pay tribute to those folks because a lot of folks are here.”
“These graves are never seen except for the time that people like me come out and pay respect to them,” he continued. “Because generations have changed, families have moved. So it’s important that we remember those folks.”
Patrick Kiely, of Eag
leville, has a brother who’s also a Marine, and he emphasized the importance of honoring those who’ve served.
“It just means a lot to me to help support in any way I can because my brother unfortunately has lost some of his buddies,” he said. “It’s a way for me to feel like I’m connecting with him even more.”
Events like this are of paramount importance to the volunteers and members of VFW Post 1074. Post Commander Walt Hartnett, of Conshohocken, served in the U.S. Army from 1996-2010, and has seen a drastic increase in attendance of the annual flag planting.
“It’s grown by volunteer participation a lot year over year,” Hartnett said, as he recalled how eight people covered the entire cemetery just seven years ago.
Fellow Navy veteran and VFW Commander Howard Daywalt, of Bridgeport, stressed how it’s “just a level of service. They’re doing things the way it should be done for the veterans that they’re honoring.”
Representatives from the VFW Post 1074 will orchestrate ceremonies at about a dozen area cemeteries and monuments today, Memorial Day.
But what does Memorial Day mean to veterans like Hartnett?
“As veterans, you always want to feel that you’re remembered,” Hartnett said. “That’s what we want to do. We want to remember those — the VFW has a slogan that ‘as long as two veterans survive, so will the VFW,’ and that’s really the essence of what we are.”
“We’re always gonna remember, we’re always going to take care of each other,” he continued. “The veterans that are here, we know someday somebody’s going to be planting flags on top of our graves, and so it’s just us paying it forward for what’s going to happen.”