Memorial Day events pay tribute to veterans
By Per Peterson
Military veterans present and those who have been recently lost were honored at a pair of local Memorial Day events Monday.
At The Caboose, Dick Helleson, Eugene Meyer, Marlin Meyer, Jack Alf, Steve Schwartz, Harold Cooper and Vernon Klaassen were posthumously honored.
“Today I’d like to welcome you to the real reason we’re here: to pay tribute, honor and respect and to remember those men and women that have served the United States and those who have lost their lives,” Tracy Mayor Pam Cooreman said in her welcome address. “I’d also ask you to send a prayer out to those who are still serving this country so that we can have the freedom that we enjoy today.”
World War II veteran Dick Donaldson was the guest speaker at the Tracy event.
“I’ve outlived most of the other (World War II) veterans, and I’m one of the few World War II veterans around,” said Donaldson, a B-2 bomber pilot who was stationed in the Pacific. “World War II has been billed by some as the ‘Good War’ — that is a contradiction. If there is anything I’ve learned, it’s that there is no such thing as a ‘good war.’ There is nothing good about killing people and destroying their environment.”
For more on this article, see this week’s Headlight-Herald.