Hundreds of people turned out for the annual Memorial Day commemorations in in Oneonta, lining Main Street for a parade and then gathering in Neahwa Park for the ceremony honoring the local military members who died while serving in the armed forces.
The morning’s rainy weather ended as the parade lined up along Market Street. Local veteran and community groups in the parade were led by American Legion Riders Post 259 on motorcycles and American Legion Post 259 members marching and riding on a float, along with an Oneonta Police Department vehicle.
Other groups included the Rotary Club of Oneonta, Family Resource Network, Casella, the Otsego County Sheriff’s Office, West Oneonta Fire Department, The Gathering Place, Lisa’s Spark of Hope, Scouting America Troop 23, the Oneonta middle and high school bands, Oneonta Sports Park, the Oneonta Job Corps Academy chess team and the Oneonta Fire Department.
In Neahwa Park, many spectators from the parade reassembled for the remembrance ceremony, facilitated by city Councilmember Len Carson. Carson recognized City Clerk Kerri Harrington, whom he said organized “99%” of the event.
The Rev. Randy Palada gave an introductory invocation and concluded with the benediction, honoring soldiers who gave their lives in service to their country.
The invocation began with a call to remember those who, when their nation needed them most, stepped forward to defend the freedoms enjoyed by others and to secure liberty for future generations.
“These honored that we are remembering gave the most precious gift they had, life itself, for loved ones and neighbors, for comrades and country, and for us,” Palada said. “Help us to honor their memory by caring for the family members they have left behind, by ensuring that their wounded comrades are properly cared for, by being watchful caretakers of the freedoms for which they gave their lives, and by demanding that no other young men and women follow them to a soldier’s grave unless the reason is worthy and the cause is just.”
American Legion Post 259 Commander Terry Harkenreader’s comments focused on honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the nation, the service members who “never came home, the ones whose chairs stayed empty at the table, the ones whose mothers folded a flag instead of holding a hand.”
He connected the ceremony to the Revolutionary War veterans who helped found Oneonta, who are buried in Otsego County, calling them “neighbors.”
“Two and a half centuries later, still our neighbors,” he said. “And from the first generation to this one, every American war has been fought by people just like them. Not statues, not legends. Neighbors. Sons and daughters from our from towns like ours; kids who worked at gas stations, played ball at high school, drove the back roads, then raised their right hand and said ‘I will.’ Some of them came home and built this community … Some of them did not come home. That is who we are here for today.”
Oneonta Mayor Dan Buttermann’s remarks drew on President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, touching on the importance of the living dedicating themselves to the “unfinished work” of those who gave their lives for the nation.
“We are here to live,” he said. “Soldiers who have given, as Lincoln said, the last full measure of devotion, have given us this place to live. This place to live is a gift we must protect, and do so by showing our love for it through our actions, our dedication, and our commitment to one another.”
He also shared a personal story about his maternal grandfather, Thomas Jenike, who was a Navy pilot and died in 1953 when Buttermann’s mother was a child, and Forrest Bjornaas, the man Buttermann knew as Gramps, a Marine veteran who married Buttermann’s grandmother and raised his mother as his own.
“The stories he shared of his service experience tell me,” Buttermann said, “that although he had a tremendous capacity to give love, his capacity might not have been all that unique, a kind of heart quite possibly shared by all of those in uniform. Each year on Memorial Day, I think about him, and then I think about the service men and women who will not have the opportunity to love as he did, or to be loved because they gave their last full measure of devotion, so that we could.”
Oneonta High School valedictorian Liam Casey recited the Gettysburg Address, and OHS salutatorian Anna Malikov recited Gen. John A. Logan’s order from 1868, which designated May 30 as Decoration Day, a precursor to Memorial Day. Logan was the commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union veterans’ organization.
Members of Scouting America Troop 23 assisted with the presentation of wreaths, with one wreath laid for each branch of the military, plus wreaths for prisoners of war and those missing in action and for the Merchant Marine.
The Oneonta High School band, conducted by Paul Jenkins Jr., played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Taps.” American Legion Post 259 member Mike Woytach played “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes.