A Park City crowd marked Memorial Day on Monday with a ceremony that at times relied on protocol of the somber day and at other points poignantly reflected on the sacrifices made by the military as well as civilians over the course of the nation’s history.
The gathering, held under sunny skies at the Park City Cemetery on Kearns Boulevard, drew veterans and Park City-area residents who did not serve in the armed forces. Mayor Nann Worel, a Navy veteran, and at least one of her predecessors in the mayor’s office, Dana Williams, were in attendance. The people in the crowd ranged in age from toddlers to the elderly as the generations joined to honor the nation’s war dead.
Many graves were decorated with small American flags, flowers or both. Some of the people appeared to be stoically dwelling on the meaning of the day as they walked through the cemetery while others seemed to be visiting the grave of a loved one.
The Summit County Sheriff’s Office Mounted Patrol rode with a rider-less horse to represent the fallen. Many in the crowd joined as the national anthem was sung. Chris Taylor, the Park City High School band director, played the solemn notes of taps as the crowd stood at attention with the American flag at the cemetery lowered to half-staff.
Mike McComb, the emergency manager at City Hall and a veteran, delivered the keynote remarks, particularly speaking about the World War II era. McComb spent 30 years in the Navy and was based in a series of places abroad between 1986 and 2016, including Europe and the Persian Gulf. He started the City Hall post on a full-time basis in the spring of 2018.
McComb’s comments about World War II were especially notable. The number of World War II veterans in attendance at Memorial Day ceremonies in Park City has fallen over the years as they aged or passed away.
McComb described that almost one in 10 people in the U.S. during World War II served in the conflict. Families sacrificed, he said, as he talked about the “shared sacrifices of the generation.”
McComb described that World War II veterans provided a foundation for the nation’s strong emergence in the post-war era. He also talked about the costs of World War II, when more than 400,000 members of the U.S. military were killed. McComb mentioned Pearl Harbor and Normandy, France, among other places important to the war.
McComb briefly recited other wars in the nation’s history but did not spend time on them as he did World War II. He said the debt to fallen soldiers cannot be repaid.
“Freedom matters,” McComb said.
World War II continues to be of high consequence at the Memorial Day ceremonies even with fewer veterans of that era participating in the program or in the audience. During the ceremony in 2018, the program remembered the fatal crash of a bomber into Iron Mountain in the weeks before the United States entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The crash was noted on Memorial Day the next year as well, as a plaque was unveiled remembering the accident.
