Memorial Day ceremony: ‘It’s all about who served’

Jerry Carey uses a cane and doesn’t move well these days, but the life-changing call in 1969 is anything but a distant memory.

Carey was in his Utica apartment when his parents told him and brother Mickey to come down into their restaurant, Joy & Ed’s. There, they broke the news: the Army had called to report that brother Danny, deployed to Vietnam, wasn’t coming home.

“It was devastating,” Carey recalled. “Still today – same way – it feels like yesterday.”

Carey was among the dozens of villagers who quietly assembled Monday at the field named for Danny to observe Memorial Day and recall those who gave their lives. Though Danny Carey was the only Utica native killed in the Vietnam War, many gathered either knew Danny personally or have enduring ties to his gold star family.

Nearly 100 participants and spectators gathered in Utica for the first commemoration without masks or scaled-back observances because of COVID-19.

“It’s a relief,” said Dana Hyson, commander of American Legion Pierce-Davis Post 731 in Utica.

It is, however, not a joyful duty. Many of those gathered came to remember departed loved ones who served but came home alive. Andy Skoog of Utica observed the holiday partly in honor of his late father, Arnold, a Marine who completed his service before the escalation of the Vietnam War (the elder Skoog was discharged in 1964.

“It’s all about who served,” Andy Skoog said.

And those who have served are increasingly unavailable to participate directly in the holiday observances. Hyson stood among a four-man firing squad while two more veterans, Joe Bernardoni and Dan Snell, held aloft the U.S. and American Legion flags.

Bernardoni is a Marine veteran of Vietnam who served in country from 1966-69 and counted many fallen comrades. His unit was hit with an explosive that claimed 44 lives.

“There are five of us who still get together one or twice a year,” he said.

With their comrades dwindling, it increasingly falls to civilian volunteers to continue the solemn celebrations. Nancy Stewart of played taps on her trumpet, a duty she’s fulfilled many years in memory of her grandfather Robert Kennell Sr., a veterans of the first World War, and friends who returned from service Vietnam.

“I do it because it needs to be continued,” Stewart said.

That spirit abounded in Spring Valley, as well, where a group of spectators far outnumbered the veterans who led the procession – though neither was a match for the flags.

Valley Memorial Park has a long tradition (1952) of displaying 5-by-8 flags, one each for a veteran laid to rest. This year’s total 469, unchanged from last year, drew Spring Valley native Pat Kuster from her home in Springfield. Kuster explained one of the flags is for her father Navy veteran Herb Piercy, who served in World War II.

“I’m here every year,” said former Spring Valley Alderman Rick Fusinatto, who counts his father, Geno, and four uncles among those laid to rest and honored by the flags whipping in the brisk afternoon breeze.

Mike Day’s family has owned the cemetery since the 1960s and he pledged to keep the eye-popping tradition alive, though he expressed hope that civilian volunteers would step up as the veteran population continues to tumble.

“As long as people are willing to help me out, those flags will be flying.”