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Area observes Memorial Day

Tribune Chronicle / Renee Fox Shawn Gilligan with VFW 1090 salutes after casting a wreath into the Mahoning River Monday morning and as Taps is played. The ceremony is part of the annual Memorial Day observance in Warren.

Memorial Day guest speaker Ronald Blakeman Monday sent a message stressing the importance of the day by relaying how his grandson reminds him every year that Memorial Day is about remembering those who have fallen.

“Every Memorial Day he goes out with his mom and dad in the morning, and they visit every grave, every relative that ever served,” said Blakeman, pastor at Mineral Ridge Church of Christ. “He loves doing that.

“It means a whole lot to him. And that is what I hope we don’t forget as we get older, as our kids get older, that there were people — and then there are people who are willing to give their lives for the freedom that we enjoy in this country.”

The Weathersfield Township event held in Kerr Cemetery and hosted by Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4192 was just one of many held locally this weekend to mark the holiday.

Earlier in the day, veterans and other residents packed into the Warren Community Amphitheatre in the city’s Perkins Park to honor those lost in America’s wars. The crowd was greeted with placard signs lining the top level of the amphitheater, featuring photographs and details of the 61 service members from Trumbull County who died in the Vietnam War.

The photographs were paired with the names of those who died in Vietnam as a part of “The Wall that Heals,” a traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall, which visited Warren’s Packard Park last summer.

The last name to be paired with a photograph in Ohio, completing the project for the state, is of Gary R. Davis of Warren, a private first class Marine born June 12, 1948, and who died May 18, 1968, in Quang Tri, said James Valesky of the Warren Heritage Center, who had been instrumental in organizing the Wall that Heals exhibit here.

Davis’ name originally had been paired incorrectly with the image of a veteran who had survived the war, Valesky said.

“His prom date called me to tell me it wasn’t the man she went to prom with, who died over there,” Valesky said. “And then, we got a call from a woman who told us the picture we had paired with Davis was her husband, and he was alive and well and sitting right next to her.”

Valesky went on to hunt down Davis’ sister in South Carolina. She responded by sending an image of her brother.

“When I opened that up, my eyes got watery. He, he was a Marine, a solid-looking Marine wearing the same uniform I used to wear,” Valesky said.

Valesky also lost a neighbor in Vietnam.

“Albert Allen Vencel. He lived right over there on Hall Avenue. He was a neighbor of mine. When we got the news he died over there, that is when it hit home, how terrible, how wrong Vietnam was,” Valesky said.

Valesky said he remembers playing with Vencel in Packard Park as a youngster.

“It seemed fitting for the Wall to set up in Packard Park,” Valesky said.

Monday’s ceremony in Warren featured the annual ceremony in which a wreath was cast into the Mahoning River, performed by Shawn Gilligan with VFW 1090 and American Legion bugler Garey Watson.

Following a service, a parade and then the dedication of a new flagpole in Oakwood Cemetery at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier were also held in Warren.

Cheryl Bula of Mineral Ridge said local observances like the ones held Monday are vital so Americans never forget.

“It’s important to remember those who lost their lives fighting for our freedom and to pay respects,” Bula said.

She and her sister, Kathy Smith of Mineral Ridge, attend the Memorial Day ceremony every year to honor those in their family lost to war.

“It’s important because it carries on the tradition,” Smith said. “We are a very small community, and it’s important that we keep what’s important alive.”

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