Help us honor those who died for our freedom

We will have our 19th annual Memorial Day program at 3 p.m. today at Lancaster Memorial Park.

We ask our community members to join us in remembrance of those who have given so much to assure all our freedoms and now rest in cemeteries throughout this county and South Carolina. We remember them all.

Let us in this community never take for granted our freedoms. They are not free. We may not personally know the veteran who rests beneath that bronze grave marker, in the vaults at Lancaster Memorial Park or other cemeteries in our communities. But we will collectively remember each of them, and our Gold Star Mothers, with our words, as we have for the past 18 years.

At the conclusion of our short remembrance program we ask everyone to help our American Legion, DAV, VFW, Marine Corp League, Nations Ford School ROTC cadets and our Ladies Auxiliary members as we pay tribute to our honored dead. We will be placing 1,188 American flags on the graves of those who eternally rest on these hallowed grounds and so richly deserve this honor.

Ernest Stroud

DAV Chapter 14 publicity chairman