It’s going to happen. Someone, somewhere, is going to wish a military member or a bereaved spouse a “happy Memorial Day.” The trouble? That’s like saying “happy funeral,” Hudson Valley veterans emphasized on Friday.
Local veterans and their supporters took time to remind New Yorkers that, unlike Veterans Day (Nov. 11), Memorial Day on Monday should be a somber occasion.
It’s a day to honor the dead, said Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus and Patrick Rooney, president of the Nam Knights of America Motorcycle Club’s Orange County Chapter.
Neuhaus and Rooney’s group placed flags beside the graves of local veterans and their spouses on Friday at the Orange County Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Goshen. The new mini-standards fluttered slowly, stiffly, poking out of the hard, dry green plots in the 75-degree sun.
Neuhaus, a vice commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, pointed to a poll that revealed gaps in Americans’ knowledge about Memorial Day.
Just 43 percent of Americans are aware that Memorial Day honors those who died in service while in the U.S. Armed Forces, according to a recent survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by OnePoll on behalf of the University of Phoenix.
“This weekend is not about partying,” Rooney said. “It’s about remembering the veterans, who have given the ultimate sacrifice, so we can continue to live the life that we lead.”
A total of 3,500 people, including veterans and some of their immediate family members, are interred in Goshen’s 20-year-old, 19-acre veterans’ cemetery at 111 Craigville Rd., said Christian Farrell, director of the Orange County Veterans Service Agency. The cemetery’s caretakers handle 20 burials a month.
Nationwide, about 1 million American men and women have died in military service since the Civil War began in 1861, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Nearly, 1.37 million Americans, less than half of 1 percent of those eligible to serve, are active-duty military members, based on Census figures. What sets them and America’s roughly 18 million veterans apart from those who don’t serve?
“They’re a unique group of people, like first responders,” Neuhaus said. “Like first responders, veterans are willing to run toward danger.”
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Source: Times Herald-Record