An overflow crowd at Ocean City’s annual Memorial Day Ceremony on Monday morning filled seats and bleachers and surrounded the podium at Veterans Memorial Park on all sides.
Hundreds took time out on a bright and sunny day to remember the meaning of the holiday.
“Today is a time for Americans to reconnect with their history,” said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William M. Matz, the keynote speaker.
Matz, a veteran of Korea and Vietnam and an Ocean City property owner, thanked families for bringing their children to the event.
“I challenge you to look inside your hearts to find the true meaning of Memorial Day,” Matz said.
He quoted Gen. George S. Patton: “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”
Matz noted that Ocean City alone has lost 53 men in battle since World War I.
Those fallen service members are honored on a memorial wall at Veterans Memorial Park and were recognized Monday in the reading of the “Honor Roll,” an annual part of the ceremony.
“Let us pray that no names ever have to be added to this wall behind me,” Mayor Jay Gillian said in his own remarks on Monday.
The ceremony included an invocation and benediction by ret. U.S. Army Col. Edmund Speitel, the singing of the “Star Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America” by Julia Wilson, and a POW/MIA ceremony conducted by Jack Hagan of American Legion Post 524.
Post 524 Commander Bob Marzulli read the Honor Roll, while Joe Bisbing of Marine Corps League Detachment 676 tolled a bell for each.
