MONROE — Tom Farris, a Vietnam-era Air Force veteran from Monroe, comes every year just to remember.
Farris — who served from 1960 to 1965 — joined more than 100 area residents Monday at Greenwood Cemetery to reflect on the sacrifice and service of Green County veterans on Memorial Day.
Farris said he was glad to see so many at the event and thinks all Americans should take time out to remember.
“Most people in the service do it for patriotic reasons,” he said. “The people who are being served by their sacrifice need to be remembered.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Andrew Suthers, of the local American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts.
“As you all realize, freedom isn’t free and the cost of that freedom is human life,” he told those assembled around the flag, and the Green County veterans memorial at Greenwood, in his Memorial Day address.
First up was the parade the short distance from Recreation Park. The Monroe Marching Band and Concert Choir provided music for the event, including the playing of taps and a selection of patriotic songs after a long line of emergency vehicles snaked into the cemetery under a huge flag hoisted by the fire department ladder truck.
A 21-gun salute cracked the early summer air, as a stiff warm wind blew through the cemetery under sunny skies. Those gathered learned of the number of vets lost from each war through the present; and listened as a bell tolled with the reading of each name from a list of Green County veterans.
“Each one of those numbers has a name associated with it and you can find some of those here,” in Greenwood Cemetery, he said.
Noting that about 20 veterans a day die by suicide, he said all must work to help them heal from the conflicts in which they served. And citing the Civil War, he said that while America may seem divided and polarized politically in recent years, the American idea of pluralism is holding firm despite seemingly endless fighting among political parties.
“I don’t believe (we are divided) for a single minute,” he said. “Maybe once again we can be more united as The United States of America.”
