Staff photo / Allie Vugrincic Janie Delgado, left, and Jayanna Lind, students from Newton Falls Local Schools, salute during the singing of the national anthem during Warren’s Memorial Day ceremony Monday morning at the Warren Community Amphitheatre. Janie and Jayanna led the Pledge of Allegiance.

WARREN — The Navy considers every submarine lost at sea to be on eternal patrol.

In fact, the Navy sends out messages to each of those missing ships on Christmas Eve, according to James Rapone with the Trumbull County Veterans Services Commission, during Warren’s annual Memorial Day service on Monday.

The observance at the Warren Community Amphitheatre remembered all those who gave their lives in service of their country but paid special tribute to Seaman Robert Emmett Carey of Leavittsburg, who died when his submarine, the USS Grayback, was sunk outside of Okinawa, Japan, in February 1944, during World War II.

The fate of the Grayback and its 80 crew remained unknown until its wreckage was found in 2019, Rapone said.

Carey’s first cousin, Kathleen Wertz of Howland, and a spattering of second cousins were presented a ceremonial wreath and the Navy colors in honor of Carey. The wreath was cast into the Mahoning River before a gun salute and the sounding of taps.

Of Carey and the Grayback’s other 79 crew on eternal patrol, Rapone said, “Their spirits are with us today because we remember them.”

Debbie Zador, Wertz’s daughter, said the family was honored to have Carey recognized Monday.

“We just wanted to make sure he got his due remembrance, and it’s been way more than we could have imagined,” Zador said.

The ceremony included the reading of the Navy Hymn, a presentation of colors by members of the Trumbull Career and Technical Center Junior ROTC program, the singing of the national anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance lead by Newton Falls students Jayanna Lind and Janie Delgado.

Warren Mayor Doug Franklin urged those who braved the climbing heat of the day, before the picnics and kickoffs to summer, to remember the many Americans throughout the generations who sacrificed their lives for our freedoms.

Franklin quoted part of John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address, saying, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge — and more …”

Following the ceremony, a parade that included the Warren G. Harding High School marching band, the Trumbull County Mounted Unit on horseback and a number of military vehicles, classic cars and floats moved down Mahoning Avenue and turned up East Market Street.

Afterward, a small group gathered at the grave of the unknown dead in Oakwood Cemetery to continue their remembrance with the laying of a wreath and the sounding, again, of taps.

Throughout the cemetery, others here and there visited the graves of lost family and friends.

Then, in another quiet ceremony, half a dozen women from the Daughters of the American Revolution Mary Chesney Chapter of Warren placed a wreath at a marker for veterans of the Revolutionary War in Pioneer Cemetery and read the names of those buried there.

“Nothing is really ended until it is forgotten. Whatever is kept in our memories endures,” Carol Olson with DAR said. “In remembering the past, we honor the men and women who gave their lives for the preservation of our freedom.”