On Monday, Cindy Compton brought a bouquet of artificial flowers to her husband’s grave in the military section of Gotha’s Woodlawn Cemetery as she does most every month.
This time she shared the usually somber grounds with a crowd of about 400 others. They came to honor the nation’s war dead at a Memorial Day service — the cemetery’s 74th.
Compton’s husband Bill — “Pop Pop” to his grandkids — died March 11, 2016, of health complications she believes were caused by exposure to chemical defoliant Agent Orange. The U.S. military used it during the Vietnam War to clear jungle that hid enemy operations.
“He was sprayed with it,” she said of her husband who was drafted into duty.
The 74-year-old was comforted by the holiday observance which included a speech from Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, a brassy performance by the 70-member Orlando Concert Band and a 21-gun salute by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s honor guard.
Compton said she believes the nation sometimes takes for granted the sacrifices of its service personnel and their families.
The origin of the solemn holiday, once known as “Decoration Day” for the custom of laying flowers or other decorations on graves of fallen soldiers, traces to the 1860s when survivors of the Civil War sought an appropriate way to remember sacrifices of the dead. Congress formally changed the name in 1967.
Demings thanked the crowd for skipping the beaches and delaying barbecues to pay tribute to those who died in service to the U.S. armed forces. He quoted from a 2011 Memorial Day address by President Barack Obama at Arlington National Cemetery.
“Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we can never fully repay. But we can honor their sacrifice, and we must,” the 44th president said. “We must honor it in our own lives by holding their memories close to our hearts and by heeding the example they set.”
Keynote speaker, Lake County Tax Collector Carey Baker, served 31 years in the Army National Guard. While a member of the Florida House of Representatives in 2003, he became the first state- or federal-elected official to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom while in office.
He delivered his address in uniform.
“It is our deep responsibility as Americans to express our most grateful thanks to those who, when the nation called, responded with bravery, courage and determination,” he said. Baker noted that more than a million U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines and other military personnel have given their lives for the nation.
Organizers recognized two Central Florida families who recently lost sons who were in service to their country. They released white doves into the sky.
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