The Daily News

Remembering America's fallen heroes at Ponemah Cemetery

BOGALUSA - Amid a garden of stone, citizens from all walks of life gathered on Memorial Day to pay their respects to the fallen men and women of our military as the Rev. Bob Adams asked, "What are we doing here? Why do we assemble on this evening in this place?"

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Adams, minister at Bogalusa's First Baptist Church, pointed out all the other places those who had gathered could have been ... "places with air conditioning and comfortable chairs and tables loaded down with goodies" as he rephrased his question.

"Why do we assemble in a cemetery, gather in a graveyard filled with reminders of our frailties and weaknesses and final fears?"

Adams pointed out the very name of the day ... of the gathering ... told why:

"This is a memorial service ... and this is why we come. We come to remember. And there is no better place to come for this remembering than here - to a cemetery, to a place populated with headstones with carefully etched names ... every name someone's son or daughter, someone's husband or wife, someone's friend or comrade. Someone sacred. Someone loved. Someone missed. Someone gone."

And amid veterans of all ages and physical condition, Adams admitted - for himself and others, too - that he felt no right to be at the service and said that if it were proper, he would salute all who had served, "but that is an act only meant for soldiers, so I refrain."

He pointed out that people were gathered for the service as a way of saying "thank you:"

"We come to stand humbly, with our hearts quiet in gratitude and reverence,

"So that we may whisper to ourselves, and to the earth at our feet, and to the Lord who is our final and true freedom: thank you.

"For those who have the right to salute; your raised hand shouts, "Thank you.

"To the Lord of the heavens and the soldiers of the earth,

"And for the rest of us we trust the Eternal Father in heaven, and the dust beneath our feet will hear our hushed voices we, too,, on this Memorial Day 2008 gathering once again to say 'thank you'."

The annual observance, hosted at the Veterans Plot at Ponemah Cemetery by American Legion Post 24, included a U.S. flag retirement ceremony conducted by Boy Scout Troop 86, the placing of the memorial wreaths and the placing of poppies on the graves.

The service concluded with the firing of a 21-gun salute by Post 24's rifle detail, the playing of "Taps' by Malcolm Fry and the recitation of "In Flanders Field" by Judge Advocate John Gallaspy.