VFW, JROTC continue to work together on Memorial Day

Monday is Memorial Day 2021 and our local veteran organizations, along with the Kellogg High School Marine Corps JROTC, plan to honor our fallen service men and women.

Each year, the VFW and JROTC work in conjunction with one another to put on various activities at all of the Silver Valley’s many cemeteries.

The VFW Post 1675, along with the Nine Mile Cemetery Board, recently purchased new markers for some gravesites that belonged to veterans — whose graves were previously undesignated as veteran gravesites.

Each year the JROTC, accompanied by the members of the VFW, also go around to the various local cemeteries and honor the fallen service members with a 21-gun salute.

“The 21-gun salute is sponsored by the VFW, and it’s pretty cool for our kids who got to shoot M1-Garands,” JROTC Senior Military Instructor Major Craig 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 a federal holiday.”

Memorial Day often gets lost in the shuffle as the first bookend of the summer camping season, or seen as not being any 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.

Veteran’s Day (celebrated in November) is to celebrate and honor all of our United States Armed Forces veterans, whereas Memorial Day is for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died in the performance of their military duties.

“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 previously. “That’s part of what we teach, part of our curriculum is making sure they understand the difference. I have countless people come up to me on Memorial Day and thank me for my service. I appreciate that, but that’s not what Memorial Day is about. This generation needs to be taught the difference, it’s a federal holiday and they should understand its meaning.”

Members of the JROTC and VFW will be out in the coming days placing flags at the cemeteries prior to Memorial Day.

The schedule for Memorial Day ceremonies is as follows:

9 a.m. — Gene Day Cemetery

9:30 a.m. — Silver Wood Village, Silverton

10 a.m. — Mullan Cemetery

10:30 a.m. — Nine Mile Cemetery

11:45 a.m. — Murray Cemetery

1 p.m. — Hunt/Bisaro Cemetery

1:20 p.m. — Pinehurst Cemetery

2 p.m. — Greenwood Cemetery