FORT WALTON BEACH — Moments after visiting the flowers and flagpole during the annual Memorial Day ceremony, veteran Don Schneider stepped away from the official activities to perform a ritual of his own.
Since his now grown children were young, the Vietnam-era Coast Guardsman has walked beside the graves and bent down to straighten any of the flags that have slipped or fallen. Monday was no different.
“I find that I have this need, I don’t know if it’s duty ... to straighten,” he said with a smile after the ceremony had ended.
His children used to protest about the time it took, but these days they’re more than willing to help him, he said, because they finally understand why the day is important.
“We come here to honor the lost, the wounded, those still fighting because if we don’t do this, they’re fighting for nothing,” Schneider said.
Schneider was among hundreds who felt the same compulsion to memorialize veterans from here and afar at the hour-long event that featured a 21-gun salute, the playing of taps and a fly over.
More than 1,600 flags were placed around Beal Memorial Cemetery, one at each grave of a deceased serviceman.
“Our focus today (is) we remember,” said Tom Rice, who helped organize the ceremony. “As long as we remember the names, and tell the stories, they live.”
This year, Rice read a list with more than 200 names of veterans or active-duty personnel who have passed away since last Memorial Day. Organizers also used a new way to recognize those who never came home.
Rather than just having a chair set up near the front with a flag, a cover and flowers on it to remember all the people still missing in action, they decided to attach a local’s name with it.
This year, it was an Army sergeant named Fred Gassman. The 1966 graduate of Choctawhatchee High School was lost on Oct. 6, 1971.
“Fred, we remember,” Rice said during the ceremony.
Guest speaker Brig. Gen. David Harris, the commander of the 96th Test Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, focused on that type of sacrifice and said it was the nation’s duty to take time each year to recall these people and those still fighting.
“All we can do is remember the sacrifices they made for us and for our freedom,” he said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.