Fallen military men and women will be remembered at Memorial Day programs in Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Sequim and Forks today.
Port Angeles
• A Memorial Day service will be held at Mount Angeles Memorial Park, 45 S. Monroe Road, at 9:30 a.m.
The service, hosted by VFW Post 1024 and its ladies auxiliary, will begin at the Veterans Circle.
A reading of the Grand Army of the Republic’s General Order No. 11, a document that founded Decoration Day, the precursor of Memorial Day, is planned.
A program will follow at 11 a.m. at the Veterans Center, 261 S. Francis St. It will be hosted by the Mount Olympus Marine Corps League.
Coffee and dessert will be provided by the VFW ladies auxiliary.
Phone 360-457-2630 or 360-477-8710.
• A Memorial Day service and flag ceremony will be held at the old Blue Mountain School House, three miles up Blue Mountain Road, at noon.
Refreshments will be served.
The event is free and open to the public.
Phone 360-808-3223.
Sequim
• Sequim VFW Post 4760 will hold a service at Sequim View Cemetery, 1505 Sequim-Dungeness Way, at 11 a.m.
American Legion Post 62 will assist with the services.
It will be a short service in honor of all military men and woman who have lost their lives.
Following the services, legion members will visit Jamestown Cemetery at Dungeness Cemetery and Blue Mountain Cemetery.
Gardiner
• Sequim VFW Post 4760 will hold a Memorial Day service at the Gardiner Cemetery, on Cemetery Road off U.S. Highway 101, at 1 p.m.
Gardiner Cemetery District Commissioners Diane Martin, Richard Quinnell and Chairman Jim Hueter will place flags on the grave sites of veterans and large American flags along cemetery pathways.
The event is open to the public.
Medal of Honor recipient Marvin G. Shields, a graduate of Port Townsend High School, was buried in the cemetery in 1965.
Port Townsend
• On the morning of Memorial Day, Marvin G. Shields American Legion Post 26 will conduct brief services at Fort Worden’s military cemetery, St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery and Laurel Grove Cemetery.
The observances include the playing of taps by bugler Rick Canstellano, a gun salute and the placing of lilies on veterans’ graves.
The main Memorial Day ceremony at the post, 209 Monroe St, will be preceded at 11:30 a.m. by a concert of marches, patriotic songs and military hymns by the Port Townsend Summer Band, conducted by Karl Bach.
The Memorial Day program, which will start at noon, will include the rededication of an interpretive sign that emphasizes the roots of the Port Townsend Legion Post’s namesake, Marvin G. Shields, who received the Medal of Honor posthumously.
A Navy Seabee from Discovery Bay, Shields was shot twice while his team constructed a bridge on June 10, 1965, at Dong Xoai, Vietnam.
Despite his wounds, he carried a wounded soldier to safety and volunteered to help knock out a Viet Cong machine gun.
Shields, who died of his wounds after he and others succeeded in destroying the gun emplacement, is the only Seabee to be given the Medal of Honor.
The service also will include the presentation of two new flags by Heather Gilden, president of the Admiralty Inlet Chapter, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and a “Toast to the Flag” recited by Fred Johnson.
The ceremony at the post will be followed by the laying of the wreath in the water and the gun salute at City Dock across the street.
The public will be invited back to the post for a buffet lunch following the ceremonies.
Forks
• VFW Post No. 9106 will host a Memorial Day service at the Forks VFW Hall on Spartan Avenue from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Coffee and dessert will be served.
Brinnon
• VFW Post 10706 will host a Memorial Day ceremony at Brinnon Cemetery.
The service will begin at 11 a.m. at the cemetery on Church Road.
For more information, phone 360-796-4001.
Chimacum/Port Hadlock
• A ceremony is planned at Greenwood Cemetery in Chimacum.
The ceremony, hosted by VFW District 14, will begin at 3 p.m.
Boys Scouts and the Elks Lodge 317 also will take part.
A potluck will follow the ceremony at the VFW Hall, 31 Matheson St., Port Hadlock.
For more information, phone 360-385-0479.
Port Ludlow
• A flag-disposal ceremony is scheduled at the Bay Club in Port Ludlow.
The traditional ceremony will be at 11 a.m. at the club at 120 Spinnaker Place.
Organizers invite those with U.S. flags no longer suitable for display to take them to the Bay Club before the ceremony.
Phone 360-437-0537 or 360-437-2208.
