Bethel Park honors service members with Wreaths Across America ceremony

The weather may have been wintry, including a light dusting of snow, but that hardly deterred a healthy gathering at Bethel Park’s Wreaths Across America ceremony.

“This is the second year for this event, and I am very overwhelmed with the response,” organizer Lisa Jenkins said as she greeted guests at Bethel Cemetery as part of nationwide activities on Dec. 17 to honor people who have served in the U.S. military, past and present.

Wreaths Across America started in 1992 when the owner of company in Maine arranged for placement of wreaths at graves in Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery. Since then, the effort has grown to include more than 3,400 cemeteries.

For Bethel Cemetery, sponsors contributed toward the availability of 721 wreaths.

“We encourage every volunteer here today who places a wreath on a veteran’s grave to say that veteran’s name aloud and take a moment to thank them for their service to our country,” Jenkins said. “It’s a small act that goes a long way toward keeping the memory of our veterans alive.”

Among the objectives of Wreaths Across America is to provide an educational experience for young people, and among those attending the Bethel Park event were members of Cut Scout Troop 215, who distributed miniature flags to children and led the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Featured speaker Michael Bonacci, a former Bethel Park School District teacher and principal who was an officer in the U.S. Army, provided an explanation to children with regard to military service.

“When you think of us veterans and current military members, please understand that our overall mission was and is to protect and preserve the rights and freedoms that you enjoy every day on this greatest nation on earth,” he said. “So when you see an old man like me wearing a veteran’s ball cap, take a moment to stop and say, ‘Thank you for your service.’ That simple and sincere gesture will make the day for both of you.”

Other veterans who spoke included state Sen. Devlin Robinson, R-Bridgeville, and Rep. Natalie Mihalek, R-Peters.

“We have the opportunity to once again to be out here together as a community to say thank you for all of those men and women who sacrificed for us,” Mihalek said, relating a conversation with her 6-year-old son prior to the ceremony:

“I explained to him what the event was and what I was going to be doing here today. And he said, ‘Oh. Well, did you know the people in those graves?’ And I said, ‘No, buddy, I didn’t know them. But because of them, you got to be born in the greatest country on earth. And today, they’re going to be watching from heaven and know that we didn’t forget about them.’”

Robinson cited the Civil War, 1861-65, as starting “our tradition of honoring our fallen.”

“Up until that point, most of the veterans were buried in mass graves,” he said. “There were no letters home letting the families know that their loved ones had fallen. And the soldiers subsequently began writing their names and their addresses on a piece of cloth and pinning them to the inside of their uniforms so that if they were discovered after death that their families could at least be notified.”

Servicemen may have been willing to fight and die for this country, he explained, “but the one thing they weren’t willing to do was be forgotten.”

Also speaking about the Civil War was Alex Brown, a member of the Washington County Sons of the American Revolution and spokesman for the Oliver Miller Homestead Associates in South Park.

“This past week, we remembered the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg, one of the bloodiest battles of the bloodiest war in our nation’s history. Nearly 13,000 American soldiers became casualties for the cause of our Union over the course of a few short, cold winter days. Some of those men are buried here on these grounds,” he said.

“Remember those men today as we lay the wreaths. Remember those men and their families who spent the holidays away from one another, sometimes for a few years, sometimes forever, so that we could freely celebrate with our families in this good and fair country.”

In addition to wreaths on individual graves, the ceremony included placement of wreaths around the cemetery’s flagpole representing branches of the U.S. military; service members whose last known status was Prisoner of War or Missing in Action; uniformed members of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps; and police, firefighter and emergency medical services first responders.

Presenting a wreath in honor of Gold Star families was Roger Kurtz. His son, Army Sgt. Russell Kurtz, was killed in action while serving in Iraq in 2007, at age 22.

Bonacci acknowledged the losses on behalf of the nation.

“We thank those who gave their lives to keep us free, and we shall never forget you. We shall remember,” he said. “Today, we show a united front of gratitude and respect across the United States of America as we remember those who are laid to rest on these solemn grounds. And we honor their memory and sacrifices that they made, as well as their families.”