Latest news with #militaryhonor
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Appleton to honor ‘Old Glory,' celebrate Flag Day Parade on June 14
APPLETON, Wis. (WFRV) – The City of Appleton is set to continue its longstanding tradition on June 14, the 74th Appleton Flag Day Parade! The celebration, which attracts more than 50,000 spectators and participants from throughout the country to Appleton, has honored 'Old Glory' on the second Saturday of every June since 1950. 'There's an unparalleled amount of pride and patriotism in the Fox Cities,' said Corey Otis, Chairperson for the City of Appleton Parades Committee. 'The Flag Day Parade provides a showcase for our community's ingenuity and artistry as well as a reason to come together and celebrate with friends and family.' More than 600 Wisconsin Guard soldiers ready for deployment with sendoff in Oshkosh The theme of the 74th Appleton Flag Day Parade is 'Honor, Courage, Commitment': these are the core values of the United States Marine Corps and Navy. Every year, the Flag Day Parade honors a branch of the military, but this year, Appleton will spotlight both the United States Marine Corps and Navy, who each celebrates 250 years of service in 2025. The Parade Grand Marshal, as always, is the United States Flag. The escort to the U.S. Flag is United States Marine Veteran Bob Lace of Neenah. Lace, 83, served during the Vietnam War era, and he is well known as the 'one-man honor guard' at the Memorial Day and Flag Day Parades in Appleton. This year's Honorary Parade Marshal is Retired Rear Admiral Jerry Clusen, a native of Manitowoc. Clusen, a Navy Mustang, served in 14 ranks throughout his 42-year career in the United States Navy Reserve. 'I love Appleton, we used to play here': Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen stops in Appleton for ROCK'N Vodka bottle signing The 74th Appleton Flag Day Parade begins at 8 a.m. on Saturday, June 14 with the Downtown Appleton Farm Market. Then, at 11:30 a.m., Houdini Plaza will host a pre-parade concert by the Marine Forces Reserve Band prior to the 1st Brigade Band at noon. The Flag Day Parade will begin at 2 p.m. at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and North Oneida Street, with the route traveling through State Street, College Avenue, and Drew Street. Notable entries in the 74th Appleton Flag Day Parade include: Nearly 20 musical units, including Navy Band Great Lakes, Marine Forces Reserve Band, 1st Brigade Band, Americanos Alumni Association, The 2/5th's Party Band, Big Top Brass, and The Badger Band (featuring members of the University of Wisconsin Band). Local marching bands, including all three Appleton public high schools, Valley Troubadours, New Horizons, Lakeside Lutheran High School, the Lutheran Vanguard, and Appleton City Band. Veterans organizations, tributes to the Armed Forces, patriotic floats, marching units, antique and collector vehicles, horses, clowns, scooters, fire trucks, tractors, and much, much more! Back for more: The Dancing Grannies will return to the Flag Day Parade along with Golden Gals MKE. Pierce Manufacturing and WHBY will hand out free flags to spectators just before the parade begins. The celebration continues after the parade. In Houdini Plaza, The Badger Band, featuring members of the University of Wisconsin Marching Band, will play music from the 'Fifth Quarter.' The free performance is expected to begin around 4:30 p.m. WFRV Local 5 will livestream the parade on our Facebook page and website. The parade will be broadcast at 10:35 p.m. on both June 14 and 21. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Region marks ultimate sacrifice of veterans on Memorial Day
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — From Williamsburg to Portsmouth, and places throughout Hampton Roads, people paid their respects on Memorial Day to U.S. military members who have died in service to their country. Starting with the oldest in the nation, 'Freedom is not free, so they paid the cost for us to, you know, be here,' said attendee Micheal Stith. 'So we want to thank them for that.' In Virginia Beach, symbols of gratitude were offered in memory of those lost while serving this country during a ceremony happened at Tidewater Veteran's Memorial. Wreaths were placed, and veterans in attendance were able to reflect. 'Memorial Day kind of symbolizes what people [had] to give [so that] you and me and him and everybody else can walk around free,' said Navy veteran Don McAlister. In Norfolk, 'We pause all over America to pay tribute, to honor our fallen heroes, those men and women who lost their lives in service, defending our country, defending our freedom,' said Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander. On the Peninsula, Newport News had an event at Victory Landing Park, sponsored by American Legion Braxton-Perkins Post 25. In Williamsburg, residents at a retirement community also hosted a Memorial Day program in which they remembered the men and women who gave their lives to protect the nation. 'Memorial Day is a very important day for me, from my family connection to the military,' said Air Force veteran Ralph Barrows, 'but also because of all of the friends that I knew and lost in different wars during the during my lifespan.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
USO National Guardsmen of the Year discuss heroic actions during Hurricane Helene
Every year, the USO honors notable service members from each military branch. Specialists Brandon Moore and Ethan Wards were awarded as the USO National Guards Members of the Year for their disaster response during Hurricane Helene last year. They, along with USO chief operating officer Christopher Plamp, talk to "CBS Mornings Plus" about the response.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
8 decades after dying in Pearl Harbor attack, Georgia-born sailor gets Arlington farewell
Virginia Connolly accepts a folded flag during ceremony honoring her father John Connolly at Arlington National Cemetery in March 2025. (Photo by Tracey Attlee/Special to the SC Daily Gazette) More than 80 years after he died in the attack on Pearl Harbor, John Connolly was finally laid to rest — not as an unknown in a mass grave, but as a naval officer in Arlington National Cemetery. When the Navy first called to tell his daughter, Virginia Harbison, that her father's remains had been identified, she hung up. At 91, living in assisted care in Texas, she could hardly believe it. It was her son, Bill Ingram, who called her back to share the news again. She was silent for so long that he had to ask if she was all right. 'Bill,' she said, 'I hadn't thought about that for 60 years.' She has lived the full life her father never had the chance to. In March, Ingram pushed his mother in her wheelchair to her father's gravesite for the burial. 'They fold the flag in this very tight, nice triangle, and then with white gloves, the commanding officer comes and takes it and kneels down and hands it to my mother,' said Ingram, who lives in San Francisco. 'It was incredible.' On Dec. 7, 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor, 429 service members aboard the USS Oklahoma died. Horrifyingly, men trapped below deck after the ship capsized could be heard tapping out 'SOS' in Morse code as the air supply dwindled. Though 32 men were rescued, the rest were tragically not reached in time. After the war ended, the remains were recovered and buried in the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, too water damaged and commingled to be identified individually. There they remained for years until modern science caught up with historical tragedy. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) disinterred the USS Oklahoma remains in 2015 to send to a DNA laboratory. Carrie LeGarde, a forensic archaeologist with the agency and project lead for the Oklahoma Project, said her team started the process by testing small pieces of bone for maternal line DNA. Overall, they inventoried 13,000 bones and took 4,900 DNA samples. For Connolly, identification was complicated. 'We had several sequences that had multiple individuals, and that was actually the case with John Connolly, and part of why his identification occurred later in the project,' she said. Since John Connolly was older than most of the men aboard the USS Oklahoma as one of the few officers on the ship and scheduled to retire just three weeks after the bombing, the team at DPAA relied on dental evidence in addition to DNA testing to confirm his identity. Connolly was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1893 and joined the Navy in 1912. He served during World War I and was eventually promoted to a chief warrant officer. In 1941, his wife, Mary Connolly, and their two daughters, 8-year-old Virginia and 6-year-old Helen were eagerly awaiting his return and retirement in Long Beach, California, when the Navy informed them he had died. Mary Connolly never remarried. 'She was very sad all her life because she married at age 30 or 31 and her husband was away in the service but was killed right before he was supposed to retire,' Ingram said. Connolly's memory has been passed down through the generations. 'We've taken my family to Hawaii, and we went to the memorial and found the marker for his name,' Ingram said. Everything changed last year when Ingram got a call from the Navy. In a 200-page report, the Navy detailed the historical background, identification process and scientific evidence. 'With the research that was involved, both with historical research and medical research, there's a lot of folks at DPAA that are involved,' Navy POW/MIA branch head Richard Jenkins said. 'We as a service will explain that to the family, with the hopes of them feeling comfortable with the findings and showing them that it's not just any set of remains, it's actually going to be that person.' There's a story that runs in Ingram's family about his grandfather: A couple of years after World War II, a young man knocked on the family home and introduced himself to Virginia and Mary Connolly. He had been on the USS Oklahoma with John Connolly, he said, and when the ship was hit, Connolly pushed open a hatch and forced him out. Connolly had saved his life. In 1944, the Navy re-commissioned one of their ships as the USS John Connolly. Though his story was a tragic one — an officer who never returned home whose remains were left unknown — history has granted him a second chance at closure. Over eight decades later, he got the hero's burial he deserved. 'They did everything. They had a band. They played Taps. They fired the guns,' Ingram said. 'Seven soldiers fired three times for a 21-gun salute.' A final sendoff at last.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Yahoo
Memorial Day 2025: Holiday more than barbecues, it remembers US military members killed
Memorial Day 2025 is almost here. The holiday is considered the unofficial start to summer — a long weekend with pleasant weather in the Ohio forecast, a time for barbecues, graduation parties and picnics. The holiday, however, is one of the most solemn that the United States observes. It honors those who gave their lives in service to this country. Here's when we celebrate Memorial Day 2025, plus more on the holiday's origins. Memorial Day travel outlook, best times to travel in Ohio This year, Memorial Day will be marked on May 26. Until 1971, Memorial Day was always marked on May 30. That year, Congress established Memorial Day as a federal holiday on the last Monday in May. Memorial Day is a federal holiday mourning the loss of military personnel who died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, according to History. A federal holiday since 1971, Memorial Day's history stretches back to the Civil War when it was known as Decoration Day. May 30 was designated 'for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.' Memorial Day got its start three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, when the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared it should be May 30, when it was thought that flowers would be in bloom all over the country. Even though numerous communities had been independently celebrating Memorial Day for years, the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day. Waterloo first celebrated the holiday on May 5, 1866. While it may be an instinct to wish someone a happy Memorial Day, there's a debate about whether that's appropriate on a somber holiday, according to Newsweek. Since the word has a joyous connotation, some think "Happy Memorial Day" is an inappropriate sentiment. For those who have lost a loved one, it can come across as insensitive and may indicate to some that the holiday has lost its meaning. Thanking a veteran for their service is more appropriate for Veterans Day, the holiday in November to honor veterans for their service to the United States. "I hope you're having a meaningful day" might be one of the better things to say to a veteran, writes NPR. Memorial Day parades, often incorporating military personnel and members of veterans' organizations, are among the traditions cities across the United States observe for the day. Some of the largest parades take place in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. Also, some areas mark the holiday with fireworks displays. Many also observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries and memorials. Some wear a red poppy to remember those fallen in war — a tradition that began with a World War I poem. As the unofficial start of summer, many people have barbecues or get away for the weekend to mark Memorial Day. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Memorial Day 2025: When is it? Origins, what to say to military members
