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Memorial Day services pay tribute to vets
With the best weather in a week shining down on Mountain View Cemetery, a good crowd of several hundred people gathered to pay tribute to the nation's war dead during Memorial Day services Monday.
One-hundred and thirty volunteers from Mountain Home AFB stood in dress-blue ranks as the ceremonies unfolded.
Noel Metzer, a 90-year-old WWII veteran and the father of American Legion Post No. 26 commander Jim Metzer, played the Star Spangled Banner on his viola as the crowd stood in silent tribute to the nation's fallen.
Throughout the cemetery, the graves of veterans had been marked with American flags, forming a sea of red, white and blue throughout the grounds.
Jim Metzer noted that "we are assembled here today in memory of those that passed this way and are no more," and that the ceremonies this Memorial Day included a special recognition of the WWII veterans.
Mayor Joe McNeal presented a POW/MIA flag during the ceremonies. Placed on a an empty chair, McNeal noted that the flag "is a physical symbol of the thousands still unaccounted for from WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and other conflicts." He reminded all Americans to "secure all efforts to retrieve their remains," and to "remember their sacrifice."
"Freedom," he said, "comes from human beings, rather than laws and institutions. To enjoy freedom, we must control ourselves.
He went on to urge the crowd to attend The Moving Wall when in appears in Mountain Home June 16-21.
Col. Ted Thompson, vice wing commander of the 366th Fighter Wing on base, was the featured speaker at the event, offering a brief, but powerful speech.
"Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago," he said, "the forefathers of our nation declared independence from tyranny.
"They put into words the very foundation of American values: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'
"Our forefathers also understood that with these great rights came great responsibilities," he noted. "They understood freedom is not free, starting at the end of the declaration, "and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
"In over two and a quarter centuries, American men and women have recognized the high cost of our freedom, the great responsibilities to ensure our unalienable rights. They have continued to pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor in defense of those rights. They have fought and died on land, at sea and in the air to preserve these values.
"From Concord Bridge to Bunker Hill to Cowpens and Yorktown, from Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, The Wilderness and Appomattox Courthouse, the Ardennes, North Africa, Normandy and the Bulge, Tripoli, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Khe Sahn and al Kut, the Coral Sea, Midway and Leyte Gulf, Polesti, Berlin, Rabaul, Tokyo, Thud Ridge, Robert's Ridge and Baghdad, America's bravest and finest have made the ultimate sacrifice.
"Today," Thompson said, "we remember their sacrifice -- the great price they paid for us to enjoy our great freedom."
He noted that inscribed at Arlington National Cemetery are the words: "Not for fame or reward, not for place or rank, not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity, but in simple obedience to duty as they understood it, these men suffered all, sacrificed all, dared all -- and died."
"Let us not ever forget."