US war dead honored in Memorial Day ceremonies in Nevada
Hundreds of people attended a touching Memorial Day ceremony in Boulder City on Monday to pay tribute to American service members who gave their lives for the nation.
“Don’t forget what our price of freedom is. What is our price of freedom? It is right here,” said Carlton Fogg Jr., post commander for the Cpl. Matthew A. Commons Memorial Post 36, as he stood in the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery where thousands of flags marked the graves of the fallen.
“People died for our freedom,” Fogg said. “You know the old saying, ‘If you like your freedom, thank a vet,’ just like our brothers and sisters who are laid to rest here. They paid the ultimate sacrifice.”
The ceremony featured remarks from Robert Garlow of Post 36, the placing of a wreath and the playing of taps. Garlow estimated roughly 900 people attended the tribute, including service members, politicians and those who simply wanted to remember and honor the sacrifices made.
Retired Marine and Purple Heart recipient Mark Curley attended the ceremony to remember “all of my brothers who have passed away over the years,” adding, “it’s something that I owe them.”
Curley went into the service at 17 in 1963. He was wounded in July 1966 while serving in Vietnam.
“A lot of them didn’t come back,” Curley said. “Memorial and Veterans Day means a lot because they gave their lives for me and our country.”
Throughout the Las Vegas Valley, the Silver State and across the nation, residents and community leaders gathered to honor those lost.
In Carson City during a morning ceremony, Gov. Steve Sisolak and others paid tribute at the Battle Born Memorial. Sisolak read from the poem “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon.
“I will remember them,” Sisolak said in a statement. “I will remember the far too many names of the far too many young people that are eternalized within this sanctuary. I will think of the Gold Star parents whose hallways are adorned with the smiling pictures of their departed child. I will think of the empty seats at family celebrations, and the longing for the loved ones passed that cannot attend birthdays, graduations, or weddings. I will remember them. I ask that all Nevadans join me in remembering them too.”
Also at the ceremony were Katherine Miller, director of the Nevada Department of Veteran Services; Maj. Gen. Ondra L. Berry of the Nevada National Guard; and Bill Baumann, chairman of the Nevada Veterans Service Commission. The ceremony also included presentation of colors by the Nevada National Guard.
In Las Vegas, a golf tournament called Folds of Honor Patriot Golf Day was held at Angel Park Golf Club on Monday to raise money for families of soldiers wounded or killed in battle.
The Las Vegas Raiders paid tribute as well. The Raiders Foundation held a ceremony and luncheon at the nonprofit Share Village Las Vegas on North 21st Street. Foundations staffers were joined by former Raiders player and Navy veteran Napoleon McCallum. The goal of the ceremony, the Raiders said in a statement, was to “help recognize those who serve and have served, and to pay tribute to fallen members of our military community.”
“It is very important that more of us take part in recognizing our veterans, thanking them and helping them,” McCallum said in a statement. “Especially because I’m a veteran, I know what we’ve gone through, and I know what veterans have to give up serving our country.”
Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.