MORGANTOWN — The ceremony wasn’t long or elaborate.
It never is.
A prayer, some words, a laying of wreaths, 21 shots and 24 notes from a single trumpet.
But for 20 minutes or so on a steamy Memorial Day morning, a couple dozen people gathered on the Monongalia County Courthouse Square to remember.
VFW Post 548 Commander Jeremy Allio officiated the ceremony and offered remarks.
“The lives of our fallen soldiers. Our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters, our comrades, were lives not lost in vain or anguish, for each life lost has contributed to the evolution of America as we know it today — a free nation, a strong nation, a nation that stands the tallest when we stand together,” he said.
Allio noted Memorial Day was born Declaration Day in 1866 in Waterloo, N.Y., when drug store owner Henry Wells suggested closing businesses for one day each year to honor those lost in the Civil War.
It’s believed the first local service was held in 1919, when a group of women volunteered to organize a march from the courthouse to the Oak Grove Cemetery.
Allio said every American owes a debt of gratitude to those who laid down their lives in the cause of liberty and carries the obligation of educating generations to come that their freedom was purchased at great cost.
“Gen. George Patton once said during a Memorial Day service, ‘In my mind we came here to thank God that men like these lived rather than regret that they died.’ I ask that today you embrace those words in their entirety,” Allio said.
