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Remembering
In Ridge, a pause to mark the fallen on Memorial Day
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by JESSE YEATMAN
Lydia Morris, 6, of Lexington Park holds her American flag high while her father, Ron Morris, a Marine Corps veteran and current reservist in the National Guard, holds his son and Lydia's brother, Peter, 4, at a Memorial Day ceremony in Ridge.
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For an hour Monday in Ridge, St. Mary's residents adorned with red poppies and holding American flags took time out of the holiday weekend to honor the nation's fallen.
The annual Memorial Day ceremony at the American Legion Post 255 in Ridge at one time was coupled with a parade. After a few years of being rained out, the parade is now no longer part of the Memorial Day ceremony, but the ceremony still draws a large attendance for the Ridge post.
This year a dozen veterans from Charlotte Hall Veterans Home arrived in a bus in addition to a host of politicians, veterans and residents. The wreath-laying ceremony honors the nation's soldiers, sailors and Marines who have given their lives while serving in uniform.
During the ceremony, representatives from local veteran organizations and other groups placed wreaths at the base of the veterans memorial, which was placed on the post grounds in the 1960s.
Capt. Andrew Macyko, commanding officer of Patuxent Naval Air Station, asked those in attendance and elsewhere to not just honor those who died in the line of service, but to remember those injured, including more than 33,000 American troops wounded in the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He said programs like Wounded Warrior and the local Vacations for Veterans are invaluable service to soldiers returning home from war injured. "We honor the fallen, but I also ask you that we honor and take time to care for the wounded, both physically and mentally," Macyko said.
Vacation for Veterans offers a weekend away from the hospital to stay in a cabin at Greenwell State Park with family members. The nearly two-year-old program is growing rapidly and has a waiting list.
He said the Navy is looking to expand the program to host the injured and their families for short vacations at the military organization's Solomons recreation center.
Sen. Roy Dyson (D-St. Mary's, Calvert, Charles) called on Congress to increase benefits to veterans, including those who return from war with mental disabilities as well as physical disabilities.
Dick Meyers, a representative for Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D), said that there is a need for more and better mental health care for veterans. Congress will consider a bill known as the Honor Act of 2009 that hopes to address some of the issues associated with veterans returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries by enhancing veterans' benefits and counseling among other things, he said.
Originally known as Decoration Day, the first official observance of what is now Memorial Day dates back to May 30, 1868, when Gen. John Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, ordered that flowers be placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Many believe Logan's idea came after seeing widows of Confederate soldiers decorating their husbands' graves at the end of the Civil War. The Ridge ceremony does include a flag and representative from the Sons of the Confederacy, along with other groups.
Following World War I the holiday's focus changed to include Americans who died fighting in all wars.
In 1915, inspired by the opening lines of the poem ‘‘In Flanders Fields" Georgia resident Moina Michael, the daughter of a Confederate soldier, began selling poppies, encouraging people to wear the small red flower on Memorial Day.
Originally, the money Michael raised supported servicemen in need. Several years later, paper poppies replaced the real flowers and the money was then used to support war-orphaned children and widowed women.
