Remembering the fallen ones

With prayer, song and speeches, soldiers pay their respects to those comrades who never made it home.

By CARY DAVIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 30, 2000

ZEPHYRHILLS -- Arthur Damsgaard has forgotten the name of the French town where, on a fateful day during World War II, he lay wounded in a field for 11 hours after a bomb exploded nearby and sprayed shrapnel into his legs.

But more than a half century later, Damsgaard's memory is still haunted by more salient details. The shrapnel still lodged in his knee doesn't really bother him; it just brings back the memories of the other American soldiers that fought with him. The ones who never came home.

"The memories never leave," said Damsgaard, 81, of Zephyrhills. "A lot of young men went overseas to fight and they never made it back. And those of us who survived, we're not the same men who went over there."

Damsgaard and about 75 others -- aging veterans and their wives, widows, and young families -- gathered Monday morning for a Memorial Day service in Oakside Cemetery. In prayer and song, emotional speeches and a mournful rendition of taps, they remembered the men and women who have given their lives in the fight for freedom.

One after another, the leaders of local veterans chapters laid palm wreaths beneath a large American flag in honor of the dead.

Some noted that many Americans view Memorial Day as a time to fire up the grill and ride around the lake on a jet ski.

"If it weren't for the vets who died," said Jim Amerman, president of the East Pasco United Veterans Council, "they wouldn't be able to do that."

Said Zephyrhills Mayor Roy Burnside: "I hope the day never comes when we have to be reminded that we need to remember."

It was a solemn ceremony in the most appropriate setting. Scattered throughout the grounds of the sprawling cemetery are dozens of simple, weathered headstones that mark the graves of men who died in the Civil War.

Indeed, Oakside Cemetery holds the remains of veterans from six wars. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of veterans from World War II and the Korean War buried here.

Just after sunrise Monday, a group of uniformed veterans began placing small American flags beside the graves of veterans. During the ceremony, about 650 of the small flags fluttered in the breeze, offering a reminder in every direction of what the day signifies.

Damsgaard, rising from his motorized scooter and walking to the podium carrying his portable oxygen tank, urged the crowd to never forget those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

"We should remember them for as long as we live and beyond," he said.

Afterward, tears filled Damsgaard's eyes as he talked about what Memorial Day means to him.

"I'll never miss one of these events," said Damsgaard, the former commander of the East Pasco Military Order of the Purple Heart. "I'm almost blind now, but I'll officiate at these events even if I can't see at all and somebody has to lead me."

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