What did you do yesterday to commemorate our nation’s fallen soldiers? When we are at home in Ann Arbor, we go to a neighborhood event, a fun celebration marked by a children’s parade, candy thrown to the crowd and finally a short solemn reading of the names of soldiers who were killed in the previous year. Then we eat donuts. It’s quite different from the events we witnessed yesterday in a small town up north.

How do these two compare with the events in your area?

In northern Michigan, the ceremonies were long on solemnity, short on celebration and fun. The events started at a pavilion in town with Boy Scouts lowering Old Glory to half mast. Veterans in uniform from WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were in attendance. An honor guard marched to the nearby river to give a 21-gun salute. Right before they fired, a woman cast a bouquet of flowers into the current.

The assembled troops then marched through town to the Memorial Park, where wreaths were laid at a memorial for all soldiers and another for veterans of the Vietnam War. They paused there. Then, they marched to the local cemetery for the final service. In the span of those few minutes, my young son went up to a grizzled Vietnam vet, shook his hand, and thanked him for his service. I had noticed this vet at the start of the march to the Memorial Park. He had stepped off late, pausing to take a sip from a flask, slipping it into his shirt pocket.

I noticed his K-9 patch and burgundy beret with Scout Dog on it. I asked him to explain what he did. He and his German Shepard were the first into the jungle, he said, sent ahead of the main squad, with the hazardous task of identifying threats and ambushes ahead. “My dog saved me more than once,” he said. As we said goodbye, I reached out to shake his hand. His hand trembled but his grip was strong and my knuckles popped.

We walked back to our car. My son asked a few questions about the Vietnam vet and the ceremonies. “I felt like I was going to cry,” he said.

“Me, too,” I replied.

What were Memorial Day events like in your area?

Do we do enough to honor the fallen?

How about the vets who return home?

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