Sunbury’s Memorial Day observance in Cameron Park attracted a larger than usual crowd, nearly people, including several Shikellamy’s JROTC, Civil War reenactors, and others. American Legion Post 201 holds the observance each year. Retired Air Force Colonel Jody Ocker addressed the crowd and talked of her time in a US military hospital in Iraq.
“There were concrete floors with linoleum overlay. I remember the details of the pattern of scuffs, gouges and stains on that floor,’ she told the crowd. She didn’t know then, that as they moved to a new hospital, that temporary floor, and other accoutrements of the hospital, would be preserved.
“Weeks later the wing commander received a letter directing the preservation of that section of floor to be moved to the then, National Museum of Military Medicine on the campus of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.”
As for what Memorial Day means to her, that was graphically seen in the hospital, “The American soldier’s bodies were placed in a black body bag, and draped with an American flag. When the people of mortuary affairs come to take them, we do a salute to fallen angels. ‘Room!’ Attention.’ We stop what we are doing, even patient care, and stand straight and still.
‘Present Arms.’ We salute as the litters are wheeled past. Holding our salute until they are taken out the door. ‘Order Arms.’ Our salute of these sons, brothers, husbands, fathers that pass by us, is the smallest gesture to honor the greatest sacrifice. Memorial Day for me is changed forever.”
Numerous Memorial Day observances were held throughout The Valley.
