Addressing the crowd at the Kearns Boulevard burial ground Monday morning, U.S. Army Brigadier General Eric Strong spoke about the meaning of the Memorial Day holiday.
“Today is not a celebration of war,” the 28-year veteran said. “It is a solemn day of remembrance and gratitude for those who left home and traveled far away to places they had never heard of, places they never came home from.”
Strong retired from the Army last year and recently moved to Heber, recalling how visiting Midway’s Memorial Hill with his daughter helped them adjust to the move. Reverence for the fallen, he said, is something Americans hold in common.
“I wanted her to see that even in small towns across America, generations of young men and women step forward to serve a cause greater than themselves,” Strong said, adding how it reminded him of Arlington National Cemetery. “Arlington, like so many of our national and state cemeteries, has a way of putting life in perspective.”
The ceremony at Park City’s cemetery lasted a half hour, beginning with patriotic tunes sung by the Park City Treble Makers and ending with Park City High School junior Coen Nelson’s rendition of “Taps.”
Dozens of other young men from PCHS and their mothers volunteered to provide onlookers with coffee and doughnuts through Park City’s chapter of the Young Men’s Service League.
For high schooler Everett Pankau, YMSL carries forward the tradition of service Strong spoke about.
“It's overall just trying to make the world a better place,” Pankau told KPCW. “It's really awesome to see all the work that people put in to help our community.”
The students, their families and local Rotarians decorated 173 veterans’ graves at both of Park City’s cemeteries with small American flags before Memorial Day weekend.
The morning of May 25 was also the occasion for the Park City’s American Legion Post 14, which organizes the annual Memorial Day remembrance, to announce scholarship awards for PCHS seniors.
The American Legion chapter distributed $5,000 total among six graduating high schoolers from military families.
