Mercer Island Veterans Honor Heroes on Memorial Day

On May 28, Mercer Island Veterans of Foreign Wars from VFW Post 5760 honored the fallen heroes from all branches of the military by handing out “Buddy Poppies” in front of QFC and Albertsons while raising money to help Veterans who are in need.

 A rare Mercer Island native, Huston Riley is an Army veteran of WWII who served in North Africa, on Omaha Beach during D-Day and in the famed Battle of the Bulge. “I’m a survivor,” he said. “I’m lucky to be here as one of the gang. Memorial Day is really “memory day” for me, to remember the other guys who didn’t make it.”

Mike Gazarek, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy, had “A nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten” emblazoned on his jacket surrounding the logo of his unit, the “Golden Shellbacks.”

“Memorial Day is a remembrance of all those who have served their country, and now it extends to those police and firefighters who lost their lives in service,” Gazarek said. “On Monday, (the Mercer Island Veterans) will lower the flag to half-mast at the VFW Post. And because I belong to St Monica Parish, we lower that flag to half-mast at noon.  We actually got the funds together to put up the flag pole there, and now every Memorial Day, we put up a brand new flag.”

An Army Veteran who served in Vietnam and the Gulf War, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, Christopher J. Byrd grew up on Mercer Island because his parents bought a house here in 1942. “I was rude, crude and socially unacceptable, so (the military) made me a warrant officer,” he said, chuckling. “Seriously, though, Memorial Day remembers those vets past, present and future and what they’ve done for this country with honor and integrity.”

Veteran Wally Younger was in the Merchant Marine and the Coast Guard during WWII and he said he appreciates Memorial Day as a “chance to reflect and feel how lucky we are to live in this free country.”

Dave Rosen, a Marine who served in the Gulf War and in Somalia said Memorial Day is important because “We have to honor those service members who don’t get to be veterans because they left their lives on the battlefield…we owe them a day of remembrance.”

Memorial Day began on May 5, 1868 with a proclamation by General John Logan and was first observed on May 30 of that year when flowers were placed on the graves of the Civil War’s Union and Confederate soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery. It is now celebrated in every state on the last Monday in May in accordance with the National Holiday Act of 1971. In 1915, inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields," Moina Michael replied with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led,

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies.

She then decided to wear red poppies on Memorial Day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their "Buddy Poppy” program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. A “National Moment of Remembrance” was founded in 2000, which asks that all Americans observe a moment of silence at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial day to remember the fallen soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.