Sylvan Heights to host Memorial Day program
The annual Memorial Day program honoring fallen military veterans will be held at Sylvan Heights Cemetery in North Union Township at 10 a.m. Monday, May 31. The United Veterans Association of Uniontown will conduct the service, which will be followed by a memorial service conducted by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 47 in Uniontown at the doughboy statue across from the post on West Main Street at 11:45 a.m.
United Veterans Cmdr. Louis Giachetti will lead the ceremony and be the featured speaker at the service at Sylvan Heights. The program will be held on the Avenue of Flags.
He said Memorial Day is meant to honor military service members and civilians who died serving the United States.
“It’s for our fallen heroes,” Giachetti said about the service. “It’s a day of remembrance.”
Chaplain Jim Clark will open the program with the invocation and the Albert Gallatin High School Army Junior ROTC Color Guard will post the colors.
Uniontown Mayor Ed Fike will give the welcoming address and the VFW Post 47 National Band will play the national anthem and patriotic music.
United Veterans will perform a massing of the various post standards and provide the firing squad.
Giachetti said he will conduct a roll call of the commanders of the 11 organizations that comprise the United Veterans Association.
Those organizations are American Legion Post 51 in Uniontown, AMVETS Post 103 in Hopwood, Catholic War Veterans Post 1669 in Uniontown, Disabled American Veterans Chapter 58, Steel City Fleet Reserve Association, Laurel Highlands Marine Corps Detachment 732, Military Order of the Purple Heart Chapter 546, VFW Post 3514 in Uniontown, VFW Post 8543 in North Union Township, Vietnam Veterans Inc. of Fayette County and VFW Post 47.
A Civil War re-enactor will read Gen. John Logan’s General Order No. 11, which created Memorial Day.
The order issued by Logan, the commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1868, called for decorating the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.
Giachetti noted that Memorial Day was once called Decoration Day.
Leo Kaputa will recite the Gettysburg Address.
Beatrice Dyer will once again sing the moving World War I song “My Buddy.”
Gold Star Mother Debbie Hull, whose son Eric Hull was killed while serving in the Army Reserves in Iraq in August 2003, will talk about being a Gold Star Mother and place a wreath in honor of mothers and wives who lost their children and spouses in military service.
VFW Post 47’s service at the doughboy statue will be held after the service at the cemetery.