Memorial Day comes early this year.
In 1868, General John A. Logan proclaimed a Memorial Day, in particular to honor Civil War veterans. Today, all who gave their lives for our freedom are honored on this day.
Here on the Key Peninsula, the Aisle of Honor at the Vaughn Bay Cemetery will display 275 casket flags of veterans on Sunday, May 24.
The majority of these veterans are from Vaughn or nearby areas, but they also include some who served in earlier wars and under the flags of other countries. Those families have donated their flags to wave in this community.
Key Peninsula Veterans Institute will raise the flags at 7 a.m. and let them wave until 6 p.m.
A ceremony, held near the monument to our fallen military people, will begin at 1 p.m. and include the U.S. Navy Band from Bremerton, which will play a medley of service anthems and other music.
The U.S. Color Guard from Fort Lewis will present the American flag, and Boy Scout Troop 220 will help set up flags and carry the banners.
Lt. Col. Tim Walker, Commander of the Washington National Guard, will be the guest speaker.
Honored guests this year include our local veterans, plus Wounded Warriors from the Fort Lewis Warrior Transition Battalion; Pepper Roberts, president of the Wounded Warrior Rehab Program; Friends of American Lake Golf Course; and John Lee, director of the Washington Department of Veterans Affairs.
Twelve members from the VFW District 4 Color and Honor Guard will be on duty in Bremerton, along with a group from Canada, to do military honors and present the colors on the destroyer Turner Joy at 10 a.m.
By 1 p.m., they’ll appear at Ivy Green Cemetery in Bremerton to do the same basic program.
Five members — an officer of the day, two rifle guards and two flag bearers — will present colors. Seven riflemen will fire a three-volley rifle salute.
National anthems of the United States and Canada will be played, and Taps will be played, too.
They will also post an Honors Detail at the graves of the two Congressional Medal of Honor winners buried at Ivy Green.
The Ivy Green program will honor 22 servicemen whose remains were not identifiable, so they are buried in specially marked graves. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier/Sailor monument was erected for them, the only known monument of its kind outside of Arlington National Cemetery.
Commander Gary Helmick of VFW Post 4990 in Vaughn organized a full Military Color and Honor Guard team in 1999 in order to perform military funerals at Tahoma National Cemetery, and various military and related functions throughout the region.
The team performed flag raising ceremonies on the Key Peninsula at Pioneer Day, Old Timers Day and many other local events.
The Color Guards were the Key Peninsula representatives when the South Korean Consul General presented medals to Veterans of the Korean wars.
In 2001, the Honor Guards became the VFW District 4 Color and Honor Guard teams, representing the VFW Posts on the west side of the Narrows bridge.
That Honor Guard is known throughout the state as one of the “Best in State.”
Of the 25 members in the VFW District 4 Color and Honor Guards, 12 live in the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula areas. Others live as far away as Silverdale, but the VFW District 4 team is the only Honor Guard team certified by the Department of Defense this side of the Narrows bridge and south of Federal Way.
They welcome interested veterans.
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