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Memorial Day comes wrapped in barbecues and the accompanying din of beers and conversation.
It is speckled over with thousands and thousands of stars and stripes snapping in the breeze.
At Eagle Point National Cemetery’s annual Memorial Day ceremony Monday, the fanfare was balanced with the solemnity required of the day.
Master of Ceremonies Bob Huff began the event by pointing his audience to the heart of the matter , the holiday’s commemoration of the fallen and the power of observing their sacrifice.
Huff referenced the foundation of Memorial Day, a link to that terrifying moment of national division, the Civil War , the time when the country almost split itself in half and could have collapsed.
Huff recalled the Confederate women who inspired others by decorating the graves of their fallen.
Their example spread and grew until it was codified by Congress in 1971. “This movement did more to establish unity after the Civil War than anything else,” Huff said.
When it was U.S.
Sen.
Ron Wyden’s turn to speak, he took Huff’s sentiment and expanded it to the present, talking about the constant declarations of a hopelessly divided country that he hears “back East.” “When I hear that, I’m going to tell them, come to this quiet and sacred cemetery, and you really see what America is about,” Wyden said.
Wyden closed by remembering his father, who was one of the “Ritchie boys,” a group of Jewish refugees who fled from Nazi Germany and came to the United States eager to serve in the American armed forces.
Congressman Cliff Bentz said he wanted to use his speech to remember an individual, Charlie E.
Jackson, a man he described as his friend and mentor, a World War II veteran who served on bombers in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
When one of the bombers crashed into the Pacific, Jackson was the sole survivor.
Bentz read a letter he found from Jackson to the family of one of the crew members who lost his life in that plane.
Jackson assured the parents that while nothing could replace their dead son, he was liked and respected, his last words were encouragement to his fellow soldiers, heard over the intercom inside the plane.
David Holz, director for the Veterans Association of Southern Oregon Recovery Center and Clinics, said words would never approach the height of a veteran’s sacrifice. “These patriots of all ethnicities, backgrounds and faiths have stepped forward to say, ‘I will serve, I will go to defend what’s right,’” Holz said.
Holz described the work of SORCC as carrying on Abraham Lincoln’s charge to care for those who have borne the battle, something Holz called a most sacred obligation.
Between all the speeches came the haunting bugle call, a 21-gun salute, two flyovers by military planes, one a buzzing World War II bi-plane and the other a pair of screaming modern fighter jets that interrupted the chaplain’s prayer and shook the ground.
The Southern Oregon Scottish Bagpipe Band played the “Song of Flowers of the Forest,” a Scottish hymn for the remembrance of the dead dating back to 1513, and in keeping with tradition, “Amazing Grace” closed the ceremony.
The lawn before the podium was packed tight.
At the close of the ceremony all those who had sat or stood by went wandering out to their own, visiting those they love who are now beneath the ground, their name on a stone.
Out among the tombstones stood a distinguished man with a short gray ponytail and an intensely decorated Navy uniform.
He looked out over the rows of headstones pensively.
Dr.
Rodney Pray served 17 and a half years.
First in the Army, then after graduating medical school he enlisted again as a Navy medic.
Pray survived multiple tours of combat, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, he and those with him nearly lost their lives when an insurgent exploded 60 pounds of munitions on the road. “We managed to survive that with only a little ringing of the ears,” Pray said.
After Pray retired from the Navy, he served his community as a doctor at Asante as a family medicine specialist , something he said he is also grateful for, as he looks back now from his retirement.
The closing of the ceremony at Eagle Point National Cemetery saw veterans, their families and loved ones fan out across the grass, offering flowers, balloons and quiet moments in remembrance of service given and freedoms cherished.
Reach Mail Tribune reporter Morgan Rothborne at mrothborne@rosebudmedia.com or 541-776-4487.