Quick ceremony included prayer, music
ROCKINGHAM — The organizers of the 20th annual Memorial Day Ceremony at Richmond County Veterans Memorial Park were determined to keep the event running this year, regardless of any changes they had to make due to the pandemic.
“COVID-19 is already bad enough, and it’s stopped a lot of stuff,” Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 4203 Commander Eddie Dean said. “It shut the United States down, but it did not shut down the honor and the sacrifices that men and women made to keep this country free.”
With a group of veterans in attendance on Monday morning, representatives from VFW, American Legion Post 147 and American Veterans (AMVETS) put on an abbreviated version of their annual ceremony, which traditionally includes a luncheon, a laying of wreaths and a 21-gun salute.
None of those things happened on Monday morning. This year’s ceremony lasted about 15 minutes and included an opening prayer, a pledge of allegiance, a playing of Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA”, the playing of “Taps” by Cameron McDonald and a closing prayer. Wreaths had already been posted and were on display in the park.
The brief event — a compressed version of what is usually a 45-minute ceremony — was the product of several phone calls between event organizers. They agreed that it wouldn’t be right to add a Memorial Day ceremony to the long list of events canceled around the world due to COVID-19.
“This is the 20th year we’ve done this,” Dean said. “If we stopped it this weekend, next year it wouldn’t mean as much since we had that gap.”
“… Memorial Day is for the ones that made that sacrifice, that didn’t get to come home and enjoy what they fought for, and what they died for,” Dean added. “To keep them honored put a good feeling in my chest.”
With the exception of a few family members, most of the spectators at the ceremony were veterans. The crowd would be larger in normal circumstances, but AMVETS Post 316 Commander Lacy Shepherd still had some takeaways from Monday’s turnout.
“We just wish that our county would flock in here to support us,” Shepherd said. “As far as the city or the county, we don’t have support like we need.
“We have to put on our own commencements and stuff. And other big towns and cities, their veterans appreciation and they get honored. That doesn’t happen around here. You’ve got cities and counties looking out for the veterans as far as showing appreciation. They do parades, which we do our own, and they do commencements, which we do our own.”
Shepherd referenced areas like Anson County, which holds an annual Memorial Day service on its courthouse steps in times of normalcy.
“We don’t care; we just do what we’ve got to do,” he added. “We know what these guys have been through, and we’re trying to honor them. We’ve been there, and the Lord has blessed us to be home. That’s the only difference.”
The organizers of the Memorial Day ceremony are hoping circumstances continue to improve before their next major event happens in November.
“Come Veterans Day I hope we’ll be able to fill this park up and go back to our cooking, go back to being like we need to be,” Dean said.
Reach Brandon Tester at [email protected] or 910-817-2671. Follow him on Twitter @BrandonTester.