Your city's events for Memorial Day.

[PghUSA]

Interested in hearing your experiences with your city's Memorial Day celebrations. What activities are planned, any VIPs honored? Is this too much or too little to celebrate our veterans and public servants, should the scope of those honored be widened or focused?

[damus]

In one nearby city, New London, CT, they cancelled their Memorial Day parade because the young veterans (Vietnam, Gulf Wars I and II) were not participating and a lot of the older vets who are still around can't walk the parade in the heat. One WW2 vet was quoted as saying "this is a disgrace". Too many people are just taking the day off nowadays...

[PghUSA]

damus, that is sad, maybe an indoor event for some of those up in age, at least a banquet in their honor or something.

[dimebag1980]

In one nearby city, New London, CT, they cancelled their Memorial Day parade because the young veterans (Vietnam, Gulf Wars I and II) were not participating and a lot of the older vets who are still around can't walk the parade in the heat. One WW2 vet was quoted as saying "this is a disgrace". Too many people are just taking the day off nowadays...

How unbelievably sad. Every veteran, young and old, should take the time on Memorial Day to honor their fellow servicemen and women. Going a step beyond, every American civilian should also take time to honor their servicemen and women.

I live in a neighborhood that's 85-90% military, and these peolpe put their lives on the line for us every day. As a matter of fact, my next-door neighbor's fiancee is in Korea for a year as I type this. We're here being free and doing whatever we want on this day off from work, and she's over there working to keep us safe.

[damus]

To make it worse ... the town across the river, Groton, is home to the first sub-base in the country and New London itself is home to the Coast Guard Academy. The area is full of military types.

[Choirboy622]

In one nearby city, New London, CT, they cancelled their Memorial Day parade because the young veterans (Vietnam, Gulf Wars I and II) were not participating and a lot of the older vets who are still around can't walk the parade in the heat. One WW2 vet was quoted as saying "this is a disgrace". Too many people are just taking the day off nowadays...

This is an absolute disgrace. Regardless of how people feel about war, the current occupant of the White House, or our government's policies overseas, people should have the decency to honor the the living and deceased verterans who have served in the past or are currently serving. One does not need to justify war, or support the current invasion of Iraq in order to support our veterans.

[PghUSA]

^^ Well put Choir, those men and women answer the call, right or wrong, and they are a major reason we can all speak our mind and persue our dreams in peace and prosperity.

Here is something that the Pittsburgh area did in honor of memorial day:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06149/694045-85.stm

[alon504]

Rev. Marie Galatas and her followers touch the wall of the Industrial Canal in the Lower Ninth Ward.

A man throws one of 1,557 flowers into the 17th Street Canal to memorialize the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Ceremonies at two canals to honor Katrina victims

07:30 PM CDT on Monday, May 29, 2006

Brett Martel / Associated Press

WWL-TV

Rev. Marie Galatas and her followers touch the wall of the Industrial Canal in the Lower Ninth Ward.

It was one of two Memorial Day ceremonies Monday at canals at opposite ends of New Orleans where high water breached flood-protection barriers, inundating 80 percent of what had been Louisiana's largest city.

The crowd of neatly 100 at the 17th Street Canal breach was mostly white middle-class residents. The lower Ninth Ward crowd of about 150 was mostly black, and few of them have the means to rebuild without help. At both, people sobbed intermittently, and spoke of closure and healing.

He and other ministers praised residents' resilience and dedication to their devastated neighborhood. They also urged them to set aside questions of blame and focus instead on how they might help each other.

"If we can find it in our hearts to say, `Hey, y'all, how ya doin', how's your mama 'n them,' then we've caught the vision," said the Rev. Oliver P. Duvernay, evoking a familiar local greeting that drew out smiles and some light laughter from the crowd in the Ninth Ward.

Some participants carried American flags as organizers also called on the crowd to remember fallen U.S. soldiers. Louisiana has long had a high rate of military service among its residents.

Noting all the state residents who have fought for America, organizers said they now need Americans to fight for south Louisiana against future devastation through a combination of better levees and projects to restore eroding wetlands which act as a buffer against hurricanes.

At a makeshift podium within sight of a handful of workers wearing hardhats and fluorescent yellow vests working on the Industrial Canal, memorial participants somberly read hundreds of names of people who died during and after the storm in Louisiana. As they read, the Treme Brass Band softly and slowly played "A Closer Walk with Thee" and other funeral staples.

Near the 17th Street breach, participants dropped 1,557 carnations of various colors -- one for each Louisiana victim, whether the death was in the state or after evacuation -- into the canal to honor the dead. People sang "God Bless America," then bagpipes played.

Scenes of devastation remain near both canal breaches, where most homes are abandoned.

In the lower Ninth Ward, overgrown weeds do little to obscure contorted tangles of wood that used to be homes or rusting cars that had been deposited by floodwaters, some upside down, against piles of debris where houses once stood.

"From here, it looks hopeless, but we need to learn to transcend what we can see with our eyes," Duvernay said as he looked around after the ceremony.

It remains unclear what exactly will become of New Orleans' worst flooded neighborhoods, but a number of residents and activists with MercyCorps and the Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association have joined to protest any effort at widespread demolitions. They fear that government officials may subscribe to civic planners' suggestions that the worst-flooded neighborhood be cleared either for industrial use or for golf courses and parks that could act as collecting pools during future severe storms.

The Rev. Marie Galatas, a minister whose Ninth Ward church was destroyed, thanked activists who have tirelessly attended city meetings to stick up for displaced residents from her neighborhood.

She said she and her remaining congregation are not ready to give up, even if they are now only five people who gather to pray in a kitchen.

"No green space except for those houses that have fallen flat," Galatas said.

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl0529...s.343dd4b5.html

Also:

http://www.nps.gov/jela/Chalmettebattlefield.htm

Chalmette Cemetery, Battlefield temporarily reopens for Memorial Day ceremonies

08:34 AM CDT on Monday, May 29, 2006

Ben Lemoine / WWL-TV News Reporter

Memorial Day weekend has always been about paying tribute to local heroes. But like so much else in Louisiana, it's been a different experience this year since Hurricane Katrina, as Chalmette National Cemetery temporarily reopened in time for the nine month anniversary of the storm