Wreaths laid in Palmer

May 29, 2007

By Will Elliott

Frontiersman

PALMER - As a modest crowd stood at the Palmer cemetery before a flag flown half-staff, a small plane swooped low. Nearing the flagpole, the pilot dropped a flowered wreath, then climbed and continued on.

For the past 40 years, the American Legion Post 15 of Palmer has held Memorial Day ceremonies for service people killed in war. Some of those gathered were veterans, from Iraq, Vietnam or older wars. Others were the children, relatives or spouses of veterans, some of whom are buried at the Palmer cemetery.

&#8220This day is sacred in the almost visible presence of those who have gone before us,” Red Smart, an event organizer, said.

After &#8220Taps” was sounded, the group moved to the Matanuska River bridge on the Old Glenn Highway. There, a second wreath was dropped and sent floating out to sea. That wreath honored soldiers, sailors, pilots and civilians who died at sea, Smart said.

Finally, those assembled reconvened at the Butte cemetery for a final rite. There, the graves of veterans had been decorated with crosses and American flags. Members of Sons of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars joined the crowd.

&#8220It was great to see the turnout today,” said Glen Brymer, a Son of the American Legion. &#8220We had a lot of people interested, and we all had a good time.”

Later, at a barbecue at the Legion post in Palmer, veterans, their families and Scouts from Troop and Pack 367 gathered. Boy Scout Daniel Kaucic was clear about to whom he felt that good time was owed.

&#8220Memorial Day is the day to remember the soldiers and what they did to make us free,” he said.

In 1915, Canadian poet John McCrae penned &#8220In Flanders Fields,” read by the Legion presiders at the Palmer and Butte ceremonies Monday.

&#8220We are the Dead. Short days ago/We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,” McCrae wrote of the men killed at Flanders in the first World War.

Published nearly a century ago, the poem has since been used as everything from a recruiting tool to a work of antiwar protest. Monday, at the Butte cemetery, the reality of those soldiers' lives and deaths left no room in the ceremony remarks for the detached rhetoric of either cause.

&#8220To you from failing hands we throw/The torch; be yours to hold it high,” the final stanza reads. &#8220If ye break faith with us who die/We shall not sleep, though poppies grow/In Flanders fields.”

Chuck Kaucic, a longtime leader of troop 367, was pleased to see that so many young Scouts and elderly veterans. alike, had not broken faith.

&#8220When I was a young man, it was called Decoration Day,” Kaucic said.

In those years, the community would turn out to decorate the graves of soldiers and pay their respects.

Kaucic said he is disappointed that in recent decades Memorial Day has become a recreational holiday, with visits to backyards and barbecues instead of the graves of the men and women who killed and were killed themselves intending to protect such things.

Contact Will Elliott at

352-2252 or will.elliott@

frontiersman.com