With flags marking the tombstones of U.S. service members at Claquato Cemetery in Chehalis, more than 100 people showed up to honor fallen service members at the cemetery’s Memorial Day service Monday morning.
The service featured a 21-gun salute, a wreath-laying ceremony and a keynote speech from Wes Noll, a retired U.S. Navy master chief petty officer who served from 1974 to 1994.
Noll’s speech focused on not just honoring fallen service members, but remembering their brothers and sisters who live on with the pain of having lost the people they served next to and would have died to protect themselves, but never got the chance. He shared the story of a Vietnam veteran named Andy Lowry who refused to open up about his own experiences overseas in the U.S. Army.
Later, Noll found an interview Lowry had previously done where Lowry explained that he had been chosen to be part of a quick recon mission to verify intelligence of a possible enemy location. An ambush took the lives of many of the men Lowry served with.
“Here’s a day where we come and honor those who have given the full measure, who have sacrificed everything. But when I look out, I think about how we have some people missing. Folks that can’t be here, not by choice, but because it’s too painful,” Noll said, later adding, “Somebody like Andy, actually knew a lot of the people that are (buried) on these grounds. Actually served with them, possibly even seen them get killed. And yet, they can’t be here. As we ceremoniously observe this day, I would simply ask you to keep the Andys that are out there in mind as well.”
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Look for additional coverage of Memorial Day events in Lewis County in Thursday’s edition of The Chronicle.
