Rows of headstones, featuring freshly planted flags to honor America's veterans and war dead, at the Dayton National Cemetery on Memorial Day.
A standing-room only crowd of over 300 members of the greater Dayton community turned out last Monday for the annual Memorial Day ceremony at the Dayton National Cemetery. Malcolm Maddox, former weekend anchor for local ABC/Fox affiliates WKEF/WRGT and current weekend morning anchor for Detroit's ABC station WXYZ, served as the master of ceremonies for the event with Glenn Costie, director fo the Dayton VA Medical Center as the guest speaker. Charles S. Cooper III, a retired Air National Guard major general and current secretary of the Air Force Museum Foundation, provided the Memorial Day address. Bernard Blizzard, director of the Dayton National Cemetery, gave the welcome and closing remarks while Father John Butler, chaplain of the Dayton VA Medical Center, offered the invocation and benediction. Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 657 from Riverside, Ohio performed the rifle salute while Wright-Patterson Air Force Base's Band of Flight and Honor Guard provided prelude music, played taps and conducted posting and retiring of the colors honors. Four members of the US Armed Forces along with a representative of the Gold Star Wives of America organization laid two remembrance wreaths at the base of the Dayton Soldiers' Monument.
