'Those who gave last full measure' remembered on Memorial Day in Westmoreland County
More than 14 months after a global pandemic brought life to a halt for many and less than 24 hours after Gov. Tom Wolf lifted pandemic mitigation restrictions in Pennsylvania, civic life began to bloom Monday at Memorial Day services across Westmoreland County.
High school bands, fire trucks, Scout troops, Little League teams and veterans’ organizations gathered on the streets of towns including Export, Irwin and Jeannette as honor guards and buglers assembled to revive traditions honoring those who died in America’s wars and marking the unofficial start of summer.
In Irwin, where the Memorial Day Parade was canceled last year, the VFW stepped in as sponsor to revive the tradition, ending with a ceremony at Irwin Union Cemetery.
In Jeannette, retired music teacher Annette Russell brushed off her trumpet and met with members of the Jeannette combined American Legion-VFW Honor Guard to play taps after a rifle salute honoring the city’s war dead at city hall. After the ceremony, the group repeated the salute at five local cemeteries in and around the city where local Scout troops had marked military graves with flags.
It makes for a long morning, but honoring those who gave their all is an important tradition, said Art Blasco, chair of the combined honor guard.
Russell agreed.
“I play with orchestras for a lot of shows and musicals, but I haven’t played for a year. When the pandemic hit, everything closed down. I think it’s important to do this to honor those who served. My dad had 12 brothers, and they all served in the military. This is just the right thing to do,” she said as the low-key ceremony concluded.
In Export, where the local historical society partnered with several community groups to move the town’s war memorial to the center of town, hundreds crowded the area around the memorial to mark its dedication and welcome back a favorite son, Export native and Franklin Regional High School graduate Rear Adm. John F. Meier, Atlantic Commander of the Naval Air Force.
For Meier, who served as keynote speaker for the event, it was an opportunity to visit family, greet old friends, thank the community that nurtured him and mark the contributions of those who never came home from war.
He spoke of attending elementary school across the street from the park and serving as an altar boy at the Catholic church next door, where he was later married and his sons were baptized.
“Export is really foundational to my development as a young man and a naval officer,” he said. “… I lived here my entire life until I left to go to the Naval Academy,” he said.
Sporting spotless naval whites, the naval aviator who now commands a force of 50,000 as well as half of the nation’s aircraft carriers commended the dedication that led Export — population 912, according to census estimates — to renovate, update and move the memorial that bears the names of all Export residents who have served in the nation’s wars.
“As I looked over the plaques and saw the names, so many names and so many families that are so reminiscent of my youth and were inspiration to me as a young man growing up in Export, it also was not lost to me that the roll call had a lot of names that I was not familiar with. And that’s truly why we’re here today,” Meier said. “While this is a tremendous dedication to those who served, it is also an opportunity to recognize those who gave their last full measure. That roll call was bringing out names I did not recall and whose sons I did not go to high school with and play football with. It hit me that for some of those families, it was the end of the line.”
John Lukacs of the Export Historical Society said a similar sentiment led veteran Gary Wuslich, a retired Marine Corps officer, to launch the project three years ago. After a visit home for a family funeral, Wuslich approached Lukacs and suggested the memorial needed a spot in the center of town. The memorial originally stood in front of what was then Duff School, but it later was moved to a spot near the Legion Hall when the school building was sold.
“My father was commander at White Valley Amvets. … My grandfather built the original memorial, so I was game,” Lukacs said.
Wuslich, who returned for Monday’s ceremony from his home in Indiana state, called it a dream come true.
“There were times when I didn’t think we were going to make it happen, but we did,” he said. “Now we have Veterans Plaza in Heritage Square in Export. It’s an inspiring place.”
Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at derdley@triblive.com.
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