Mark Donahue, commander of Springdale VFW Post 1437, looked over the gravestones and what he called “a sea of flags” at Deer Creek Cemetery.
“This is where our friends are,” he said at the veterans memorial service at the cemetery Sunday afternoon. It was his second service on the eve of Memorial Day.
About a half-hour earlier, Donahue delivered a message at a service at Cheswick’s Veterans Memorial and read the World War I poem “In Flanders Fields,” which begins: In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row.
Flanders Fields in Belgium was a major battle site on the Western Front, where about a million soldiers were wounded, missing or killed in action over the war. “They had turned no-man’s land into a sea of mud,” Donahue said. “The first seeds that sprouted when springtime came was the poppy.” The poem concludes, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields.
The poem, by John McCrea, gave rise to poppies as a symbol of remembrance for fallen soldiers.
American Legion Post 764 Cmdr. Stephen Hudson led both services. He welcomed the veterans groups and placed wreaths by the veterans memorial and in the cemetery at the gravestone of Marine Sgt. Joseph John Pallo, who was killed in action May 15, 1945.
Pallo was fighting in Okinawa, Japan. He was 23.
Representatives of other veterans groups, including the Springdale Veterans Association and West Deer William Fish American Legion Post 593, placed red, white and blue flowers and a spray of evergreen at both sites.
Officials said the red symbolizes courage, white symbolizes purity, and blue symbolizes loyalty or eternity. The evergreen represents enduring remembrance.
“It’s obviously important to us. We’re glad that the weather cleared just in time for us to come out here and do this,” Hudson said.
“It’s an emotional event because we’ve been doing it for so long. We have lots of our comrades who aren’t with us anymore when we do this. A lot of it is remembering guys who were here last year, of five years ago or 10 years ago.”
Hudson, during both his speeches, reminded everyone that the occasion was for everyone who fought and died for freedom.
“Our presence here is in memory of all our comrades of all wars wherever their final resting place,” he said. “By their service in the Marine Corp, the Navy, the Air Force, the Army and the Coast Guard. They have made our nation forever their debtors.”
Springdale Borough trumpet players Gabriel Hudson and Bob Tomayko performed taps at both sites.
Riflemen from American Legion Post 764, VFW Post 1437 and Allegheny Valley Marine Corps League Detachment 827 fired off salutes at both sites.
Dave Zetwo, commander of the West Deer William Fish American Legion Post 593, said there is a bit more emotion behind the services with the nation’s 250th anniversary coming up later this year.
He recognized the veterans groups for coming, but said he was a bit disappointed in the general turnout. There were fewer than a dozen people outside of uniform and professional purpose at both services.
“The two main things we need to take away from Memorial Day is, first off it’s a shame we don’t see more people attending,” said Zetwo, who served in the Army from 1980 to 2005 and retired as first sergeant.
“It’s something the veterans organizations will always keep doing no matter how many people come to see the events. It means a lot to me, too. These kind of things.”
Zetwo said he hopes services will get the same attention of a sports championship parade.