The thank-you’s for paying respects to the fallen and their families were abundant from military members past, present and future at the 58th annual Rosehill Cemetery Memorial Day parade Monday.
The Balson family — Pierre, wife Lenore, and 3 ½-year-old son Sebastien — were on their front lawn on West Rosehill Avenue enjoying the community camaraderie that’s been absent since the pandemic began.
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“It’s great to have it again,” Pierre Balson said. “I just love being outside, hanging with the neighbors. It’s the best part of Memorial Day, everyone is talking with each other, enjoying the day. It’s a beautiful parade too, awesome to see the ROTC kids. It’s also cool seeing a lot of the veterans as well.”
Members of the Edgewater Baptist Church were in attendance, enjoying the lawn chairs provided by residents of the block for the annual event. Krista Muscat, deacon of the Benevolence Fund at the church, says a contingent from her church have been going for the past decade.
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“We enjoy coming out and being with the community,” she said. “It’s a real neighborhood small-town parade.”
First time parade goer and Army veteran of the Vietnam War, Richard Zaber, attended because he was moved by the memorials he had seen on television the night before. His friend, Judith Jakaitis, who lives a couple of blocks from the parade route, invited him to enjoy the parade.
The parade — which featured members of the local Scouts troop, dozens of members of the Lane Tech High School ROTC Warrior Battalion and Daughters of the American Revolution Culper Ring Agent 355 Chapter — wound its way from West Rosehill at Clark Street through the stately limestone entrance to the cemetery. They marched down lanes lined with 180 American flags, placed with the help of 30 students from ASPIRA Early College High School in Avondale.
Many people followed the parade into the cemetery grounds for a ceremony of gratitude. With temperatures nearing the 90s, many stood under shade as the wind blew the flags in the hands of attendees and throughout the grounds. As the Rev. Jerome Kowalski said during the invocation: “Whenever you see a flag blowing, it indicates the last breath of an American who gave his or her life so that we can remain the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
A resounding amen came from the crowd.
Marcos Torres, commander of American Legion Sergeant Jason Vazquez and Post 939, later addressed the crowd, encouraged by the numbers present to view the ceremony since the pandemic. For him, every day is Memorial Day.
But after the recent mass shootings in the nation, he said he found himself wondering: Is this the America that these brave men and women have died for? Is this the America that they believed in?
“Understand that service does not end with the contract. It is a lifestyle and continual,” he said. “We have a duty and a burden of responsibility to those who went before us to serve our community and be pillars and leaders in our community, whether we like it or not, that is who we are. It’s in our DNA, we didn’t choose it.”
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American Legion Tattler Post 973 2nd District Commander Brent Webb, who served in the Air Force from 2006 to 2012, invited people to get to know those in their neighborhood Legion posts.
“The American veteran represents a cross section of every way of life in America, more perfectly than any other institution in our nation,” he said to the crowd. “You don’t see the same thing in Congress, you don’t see it in our communities, as segregated as they can be. But you do see it in the American veteran population.
American veterans are not a monolith, we are individuals that decided we wanted to serve. And … for anyone who served, it is a service that continues on. We’re a community of individuals trying to serve our community, and no one gets things done better than an American veteran.”
Northwest Side Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, and North Side Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, were in attendance. Vasquez urged residents to remember those we’ve lost, and those who have come back with physical and mental trauma. Villegas, chairman of the veteran caucus on the City Council, reminded everyone “freedom isn’t free.”
“All us veterans took an oath to defend this country to all enemies, foreign and domestic, and ladies and gentlemen, that oath does not have an expiration date,” he said.
“When we speak of tribute to our soldiers, let’s imagine the day when we will have attained that which has been fought so hard for — a world of peace where we are no longer in need of soldiers,” Vasquez said. “Let us as neighbors be comrades in peace just as our veterans have been comrades in arms. Let us commit ourselves to that promise on this and every Memorial Day.”
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The service, which dates to the 1930s and 1940s, has been hosted by an AMVETS group for the last 55 years, said Michael Weidman, Dignity Memorial family service manager. He said Rosehill Cemetery has one veteran from every conflict that America has fought in, including the Revolutionary War. Weidman, who has led the service on behalf of the cemetery for the last six to seven years, said about 1,000 to 1,500 people attend annually. He said he’s happy to be able to give thanks to those who’ve done the things he hasn’t.
The Chicago Light Artillery Battery A closed out the service by firing a Civil War cannon three times. Former commander William Kummerow has been a part of the ceremony for 34 years. Donning wool regalia as a union major, he is already looking forward to Veterans Day, when he says people will be donning uniforms from all the different wars.
“Rosehill Cemetery predates the Civil War by about 14 months,” Weidman said. “For 163 years, we have been here and from the very beginning the leaders of the cemetery set aside the choicest property for the graves of the veterans of the Civil War, and that was the beginning of our relationship with veterans.”
