ORLANDO, Fla. – This Memorial Day, as a veteran, I dedicated myself to attending as many events and ceremonies associated with the holiday as possible, outside of my usual office duties.
While the federal holiday is honored on the last Monday in May, events in Central Florida spanned Friday through Monday.
According to the United States Census, more than 1 million men and women have died in military service since the Civil War.
I started this project at the city of Orlando’s Memorial Day Commemoration Ceremony on Friday, May 23, at Greenwood Cemetery.
Orlando
On Saturday, May 24, I traveled to Leesburg for their Memorial Day event at Veterans Memorial Park. There, I had the privilege of meeting 80-year-old Marine Corps and Vietnam veteran George Wanberg. He shared why it was important for him to pay tribute to his fellow servicemen who sacrificed their lives for the nation.
“We need to respect and honor those who fell,” Wanberg said. “People have been dying for this country since its founding in 1775, and if we don’t honor them now, an entire generation might be forgotten. Our young kids need to see what we’re doing today.”
Leesburg
On Sunday, May 25, I visited the Florida National Cemetery in Sumter County.
Nikki Balasch, event coordinator with the Flags for Florida’s Fallen of Florida National Cemetery, gathered with the 2,743 volunteers on the morning before Memorial Day to place flags every grave site – all 244,000 of them. It’s an impressive feat that is accomplished in just over an hour at the cemetery that covers over 500 acres.
Totes filled with flags were placed around the cemetery, and after Taps was played at 9 a.m., volunteers started their mission, placing flags at the front of each grave site.
But the tribute didn’t end there.
“Each name is said aloud and they are each thanked for their service, so that no here is ever forgotten,” Balasch said.
Like many volunteers, Balasch has a special connection to the cemetery – her father, Charles Bruce, who served in Vietnam while in the U.S. Army, is buried in section 626.
“He’s the reason why I do this,” an emotional Balasch said. “He’s my hero.”
Bushnell
After I left Bushnell, I traveled about an hour to Clermont to visit the Memorial Vietnam Traveling Wall at Waterfront Park. There, I met Brock and Toni Creekmore, who were visiting the wall to find the name of her uncle, Ronald Gaffney, who was killed in Vietnam in 1965.
“Very overwhelming,” Toni Creekmore told me. “I was so little when he died, seeing it, understand how my mother was.”
“We don’t think about how it affects families,” Brock Creekmore said. “Her mother lost a very, very close brother and she was never the same. My father lost his older brother on the beaches of Normandy, June 6, 1944, and you could see the effect in him.”
Clermont
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