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Day stays true in vets' honor
By JAMIE JONES, Times Staff Writer SPRING HILL -- He sat beneath a tall oak tree, wearing a crisp white shirt, an American flag patched to his left shoulder. John Sommerer was thinking. About riding the sea aboard an aircraft carrier during World War II, about friends who helped pass the days. Many of them are gone now, but Sommerer attended the Memorial Day Service at Florida Hills Memorial Gardens on Thursday to remember. He and his wife, Dorothy, believe that Thursday was the appropriate time to officially honor veterans of war. Not Monday, as the government decided, but on May 30, when Memorial Day was first celebrated in 1868, and families placed flowers on the graves of Civil War soldiers. "I don't think it's right for the government to keep changing the date," said Sommerer, who lives in Spring Hill and is 75. "They want to package the day with a weekend for convenience, but this is not about convenience. It's about honoring our service people." Dozens of people arrived at the cemetery at 11 a.m. to honor soldiers living and dead. They sat beneath three large tents or unfolded chairs beneath shady trees. Former soldiers paraded with guns and flags. They had lost the color of their hair, but not the gentle rhythm of their march as patriotic music played from loudspeakers. "Lest we forget," Chaplain George Drobina told the crowd. "We must remember those heroes." U.S. Rep. Karen Thurman vowed to continue fighting terrorism, and to help recognize the new generation of war heroes. Away from the crowd, Margie Kuhn, 55, sat beneath a red and white umbrella, fingering a picture of her father, James E. Cabble Jr. He served in the Navy and died four years ago. He always appreciated Memorial Day and Kuhn decided to spend the morning beside his grave, filling him in the details of her life, as well as the latest news about Tiger Woods, as her father was a golf fan. "I still miss him terribly," Kuhn said. "I just wanted to be with him today." Chaplain Drobina told the crowd he hoped the ceremony would nurse their painful memories, and asked them to remember always the honorable men and women who were living and dead, who had been wounded and maimed, and whose families had sacrificed much. "We will remember . . . forever," he said. -- Jamie Jones can be reached at 754-6114. Send e-mail to jjones@sptimes.com.
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From today's Hernando Times Letters |
