In 2017, Lt. Col. (Ret.) David Trogden told those gathered at the Opp, Alabama Memorial Day Celebration that heroes are those who gave their lives for Americans' freedoms.

"For far too many, Memorial Day has become nothing but picnics, fishing, going to the beach and hot dogs and hamburgers," he said.

"It's about heroes."

At last year's Memorial Day service Trogden said heroes are not on a ball field but on a battlefield.

"They are heroes who sacrificed the comforts of home and their lives," he said. "They did it for people they never met, but our society seems to forget a lot about heroes."

Trogden said that googling the definition of hero reveals that it is "a man - or woman - of distinct ability and character."

"Today, we honor true heroes," he said. "This morning I was able to walk around the cemetery, where I saw the flags placed. I love to walk through cemeteries. I like to read tombstones and see all I can about those who have been laid to rest. I saw heroes from World War II, heroes from Korea, heroes from Vietnam and even one who was a hero from WWII, Korea and Vietnam."

Trogden said that those who serve in the Armed Forces aren't comfortable being called heroes. "Because we aren't," he said. "Heroes to me are those who didn't come home or those who wait at home not knowing whether we are alive or dead. So we have that great honor to celebrate Memorial Day not as a happy day but as a holy day."

"We remember the price that was paid so that you and I could be free," he said. "The price that was paid so that you and I could be part of the greatest nation. So we can gather together at meetings like this. Gather on Sunday. Have freedom of the press. Freedoms that are too often taken for granted."

Healing-Our-Patriots-With-Equines

  Memorial Day 2017 Opp, Alabama

 

SOUTH THOMSTON - Citizens will gather at the graveside of Elder Samuel Baker in the Village Cemetery, Dublin Road, Sunday, May 27, at 2 p.m. and pay their long-overdue respects for his patriotic service as a chaplain during the War of 1812 and his contributions as a 19th-century theologian and utopian.

The Wessaweskeag Historical Society, in association with the Randall Collins Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3108 (Belfast) and the Elder Samuel Baker Circle, have coordinated this community event.

Baker, born in 1785, served as an Army clergyman with Lt. Col. Erastus Foote's Massachusetts Regiment (Maine at the time was part of the Bay State) in 1814. Records for this period are rather fragmentary and contradictory, but research indicates that the Massachusetts governor called upon a volunteer militia to "suppress a threatened invasion" by the British, and Foote, an attorney by profession, organized at least a dozen companies that were to be stationed at Thomaston, St. George and Camden.

After the war, Baker rose to prominence (and also sank to controversy) as an outspoken progressive theologian and public education advocate. He sermonized on a national stage as a major contributor to the weekly Sabbath Recorder, and in 1858 he floated a proposal for a planned community ("utopia") to be situated in "Greater South Thomaston" (today's Owls Head).

Sunday afternoon's ceremony will consist of a eulogy and a short talk about chaplaincy during the War of 1812, the decoration of the chaplain's grave with a wreath and an appropriate veteran's marker. VFW Post 3108 plans to have an honor guard, a rifle squad and a bugler on hand to help officiate.

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