Memorial Day May 28,2007

O're the land of the free and the home of the Brave.

We live in a land of the free because of the Brave.

VFW Marines

Color Guard

Bugler played the call to assemble and to raise the flag

Hayrides for everyone all day. The Blue Gospel quartet led us in rousing songs of faith.

WWII Jeep rides for everyone all day.



Here comes the National Guard Apache Helicopter flying over the lake.

We learned that one helmet with all its technology cost $15,000.


Karen Sultan played appropriate music during the lunch break.

How many nails will go into a tree stump?

Preparing hush-puppies for 900 people.

The food line took longer than we wanted so next year we will have four serving tents instead of two. We served pork, slaw, hush-puppies, cake and lots and lots of sweet southern ice tea.

For Deborah, Memorial Day meant showing a picture of our expectant Kelly.

Good Ole Lester Roy Barham greeting all of us after being up all night cooking four pigs for the pig-picking lunch. He also cooked the hush-puppies.

The crowd was attentive and appreciative of all the testimonies given by the Veterans who spoke.

This was a multi-generational day. That is Blair standing tall.

Many of the girls who fourteen and under word colonial dresses and served the veterans.

The four Price brothers enlisted in WWII and were all sent to different places. One was involved in D-Day in Normandy. They honor us with their presence every year.

David Lanier is a Civil War Historian and he told stories of the Patriots of that war.

Art Burry(rt) was shot down on June 1, 1945 near the Sea of Japan and rode out the worst typhoon, Typhoon Nana, of the war. He was in his little raft for 6 days. Huge destroyers and carriers in Admiral Halsey's fleet were being split apart by this storm. After six days the Submarine Trutta just happened to surface and saw this tiny black dot on the crest of the wave. Jack Toliver was on that Submarine and is sitting here with Art. There are so many wonderful stories to tell.



Ashley Brown escaped death in Afganistan. Jim Dyer told of the providence of God in his life in Vietnam.

All of these men were on Iwo Jima at one time or the other. Bill and Art Burry flew P-51's, Marvin Sneed flew P-47's, Buck Bunn flew B-29's and Bill Henderson was a Marine who was in the first wave of the invasion of Iwo Jima. It was Buck Bunn who saw Bill's plane on fire and watched him bail out. It is quite possible that it was Buck's tail gunner that shot Bill out of the air.

Steve Breagy told of his experiences flying a Chinook Helicopter in Central America and on the Mexican border.

The many faces of Veterans.

Day is done. Gone the sun from the hills, from the plains from the sky. All is well, safely rest, God is neigh.