Community honors and remembers on Memorial Day

Members of the Cloquet Combined Honor Guard made their longest and final Memorial Day stop - their 10th in three hours - at Veterans Park Monday.

It was a celebration of Memorial Day in its purest form: honoring the more than 1 million men and women who gave their lives on the field of battle in service of this country.

"Some fell during historic battles, with iconic names such as D-Day, Khe Sanh, Pearl Harbor, Fallujah, Ramadi," said master of ceremonies Troy Smith, retired Sgt. 1st Class and Adjutant for the Cloquet VFW. "Others fell on nondescript ground: the rice paddies of Vietnam, various beaches in the Pacific or one of a thousand hills across Afghanistan."

Almost half of those soldiers - 620,000 - died during America's Civil War, with only World War II coming close to that total, with over 405,000 dead. By comparison, 58,209 died in Vietnam, 2,325 in Afghanistan and 4,492 in Iraq, according to Wikipedia and other online sources.

Guest speaker Tech. Sgt. Jessica Smart, a recruiter with the 148th Fighter Wing Air National Guard talked about the origins of Memorial Day - then called Decoration Day - which started after the "unprecedented carnage and destruction" of the Civil War.

"From those dark times, it was the families who were honoring their dead that began to bring the light of reconciliation," she said, telling how families in one city in Mississippi decorated the graves of both Union and Confederate troops "out of respect for the families of the Union Soldiers, and with the hope that someone would do the same for their lost loved ones in the North."

Monday's Memorial Day service gave audience members a place and time to honor those who have passed, on a plaza paved with the names of local veterans. The Cedar Creek drum group played a war and veterans song, flanked by members of the Fond du Lac Honor Guard.

Commanders and presidents of the Cloquet veterans groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion and Disabled American Veterans, laid wreaths in honor of each branch of service by the memorial under the flag.

Members of the Cloquet Combined Honor Guard raised the flag from half mast, fired three rifle salutes and U.S. Marine Corps Reserves Lance Cpl. Bryce Moe played taps.

Smart noted that many of those who die in war don't want to go, don't volunteer, and don't love fighting.

"They were called to be part of something bigger than themselves," she said. "They were ordinary people who responded in extraordinary ways in extreme times. They rose to the nation's call because they wanted to protect a nation which has given them, us, so much."