In Illinois, Legion Family and their communities honor the fallen on Memorial Day.
Under a bright blue sky, amidst a crisp breeze, Gary Pugh spoke about “the saddest thing I hear.”
“When someone passes away and you hear people say, ‘I didn’t know they were a veteran.’ I think that’s a flaw in our society that needs to be fixed,” said Pugh, the vice commander and chaplain of American Legion Post 499 in Gilman, Ill.
Legion Family from Post 499 and three other posts in Illinois’ Iroquois County spent Memorial Day morning ensuring that those veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation would not be forgotten.
From Danforth, where Post 367 led a Memorial Day service at the cemetery; to St. Mary’s Cemetery in Gilman; to Onarga Cemetery, where Post 551 led the Memorial Day program; and finally to Thawville, where Post 700 commemorated the day at the village’s cemetery, dozens of Legionnaires, Auxiliary and Sons joined with hundreds of townspeople to honor their fallen veterans.
“We are here today to honor all of our fallen heroes,” Post 700 Commander Rodger Bennett said at Thawville.
At each cemetery, Legion Family read a roll call of the deceased veterans — and in some cases, Gold Star families — from each community.
Post 499 Commander Matt Kreeb paused during the Gilman reading to encourage those in attendance to visit the veterans’ graves in that cemetery and the city’s other cemetery.
And, he said, the keyword for the day was “remember.”
The Memorial Day event across Iroquois County has become a tradition which includes the choir from Iroquois West High School singing the national anthem at each service, with Post 700 footing the bill for the bus to carry the students to each cemetery.
At Danforth, cars lined the gravel road through the cemetery as well as the county road out front, a sign of the support the county gives to Memorial Day.
In Gilman, Pugh encouraged those in attendance to continue to support their veterans.
“Don’t be afraid to talk to someone who is a veteran,” he said. “I think we can come up with a thousand reasons to be disrespectful between each other, but I think the important thing is that we all open the doors to communication so nobody else commits suicide. So nobody else dies after serving their country, coming home and killing themselves.”
At Onarga, a huge crowd gathered in respectful silence as Post 551’s three oldest active Legionnaires laid flowers on the graves of three World War I veterans. Post 551 Commander Steve Thorsten also talked about Memorial Day’s history.
In Thawville, Bennett reminded those in attendance that “every day since Dec. 7, 1941 … we have had military personnel in harm’s way in some area of the world.”
Bennett added, “War is often not the best policy, but the heroes that wars produce are the best of America.”
- Memorial Day