Lt. Col. David Meyer speaks. (CP Photos by Scott Richards)
Sometimes the ceremonies that are simple and unrehearsed can be the most poignant.
It was that way Monday with the annual Memorial Day Ceremony in front of the Caroline County Courthouse.
Each individual who came forward to tell a story about a friend, relative or comrade-in-arms spoke from the heart.
Lt. Col. David Meyer, the commander of Fort A.P. Hill, told the audience about a friend of his who had joined the Army as an older man with a wife and three children and served in Afghanistan.
“We were the first Americans in Kandahar City. Dale loved his job, loved getting out and getting around. On the 30th of August, 2010, he was killed when an IUD destroyed a truck he was riding in with four others.
“He was the first chaplain killed in Afghanistan,” Meyer said.
“It is a common misconception that you should thank a veteran on Memorial Day. Today is not for me. It is about those who fell, those who could not be with us, those who had no tomorrows. They left somebody behind, but they are with us every day. They did it for us,” Meyer said.
“I escorted my uncle back from Vietnam,” said Armando Recon-Flores, the quartermaster of VFW Post 10295, which sponsored the event. “He didn’t volunteer to go. He didn’t come back. I know he is looking down at all of these programs.
“When I visit his grave, I know I’ll be there one day. We will always have someone to think about,” he said.
Recon-Flores also talked about leaving the Army after Vietnam and being spit upon and having things thrown at him in the San Francisco Airport. “All I did was my duty. It was my job. I did my duty like I was supposed to do.
“I didn’t come back in one piece, but I came back and I’m still here. The veterans of all the wars… we’re all here,” he said.
“I see veterans out here. Some are World War II, some are from Vietnam,” said Post 10295 Commander Doug Stephens. Speaking about his father, Stephens said, “Some of you were on his left and some on his right and that is why he came home and raised a family.”
Stephens also talked about riding into his job at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. “I rode in that day to work about 7:30 a.m. with Melissa Rose Barnes. I had coffee and went to a meeting in the operations center across the hall. It was then that we had the first inkling of terrorism that was on the way.
“My Colonel decided that everybody had to leave —30,000 people had to leave. We went to the Lyndon B. Johnson Park and waited. I saw one lone individual stumbling on the sidewalk and dusted him off. He had dug his way out of the Pentagon [after it was struck].
“We had a stretcher and a major said, ‘I’m going in,’ and I went in with him. Needless to say it was the longest day of my life. Usually when I left work there I saw a lot of familiar faces. At the end of that day I saw few faces I knew and there were no smiles. There were a lot of tears.
“Melissa Rose Barnes would not be going home that day,” Stephens said.
Vernessa Ware said she wanted to express her gratitude to the veterans as a citizen.
“My husband is a Vietnam veteran. We were engaged when he went off to Vietnam. I was in college then [while the war protests went on]. He has medals for bravery and for being injured.
“Many of you have family members who are still serving. You went through an awful lot. We need to show our gratitude,” she said.
Not everyone is willing to talk about what they saw in war, one speaker said.
Tony Midea, who was in Vietnam, talked about “my friend Lou, who was in World War II. He was shot and carried the scars all his life. He raised a family and never said anything about what he went through.
“He was my father-in-law,” Midea said.