Memorial Day JROTC ceremony lineup

KELLOGG — The Kellogg High School Marine Corps JROTC performs in numerous community service events throughout the year to benefit our community.

Whether it’s color guards at parades, ceremonies or sporting events, or acting as a workforce and doing countless hours of community service, the student cadets are constantly working for the betterment of the Silver Valley.

For Memorial Day, the cadets put in a two-fold effort for the residents of Shoshone County.

It begins the weekend prior to Memorial Day when they go up to Greenwood Cemetery in Kellogg, and place flags at the gravesites of the many veterans whom are buried there.

“The flag placing is sponsored by the American Legion, they are low on local members and many of them are Vietnam era veterans,” said MCJROTC Senior Marine instructor Major Craig Petersen. “We are a perfect fit to take that project off their hands. It gives us a chance to teach and encourage citizenship, giving back and honoring veterans who have given the ultimate sacrifice. We feel like this is a great thing for the kids to participate in and the kids have a really good time doing it.”

The second part of Memorial Day for the JROTC consisted of a tour of the Shoshone County cemeteries and nursing homes, where the cadets perform a 21-gun salutes to honor the fallen veterans.

“The 21-gun salute is sponsored by the VFW, and it’s pretty cool for our kids who get to shoot actual M1-Garands, they only shoot blank ammunition (to clarify)” Petersen said. “This is something that our kids who plan on going into the military will see, the 21-gun salute, the playing of Taps, whenever a service member dies. But also it is teaching them how to honor what this particular Federal Holiday is about.”

Memorial Day often gets lost in the shuffle as the first bookend of the summer camping season, or no different than Veteran’s Day, but Major Petersen is making sure that his cadets not only understand the difference between the two days, but also understand the magnitude of the day itself.

“If you asked the people out in the community what the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day was odds are that very few would know the difference,” Petersen said. “That’s part of what we teach, part of our curriculum is making sure they understand the difference."

The Memorial Day schedule is as follows:

- 9 a.m. Gene Day Cemetery (Osburn)

- 9:30 a.m. Good Samaritan Nursing Home

- 10 a.m. Mullan Cemetery

- 10:30 a.m. Nine Mile Cemetery (Wallace)

- 11:45 a.m. Murray Cemetery

- 1 p.m. Hunt/Bisaro Cemetery (Kingston)

- 1:20 p.m. Pinehurst Cemetery

- 2 p.m. Greenwood Cemetery (Kellogg)