Memorial Day observances took place across the Northeast on Monday morning.
The Philadelphia Protestant Home hosted a ceremony that included a performance by the Boy Scouts Troop 160 drum and bugle corps. Scout Alex Phillips helped PPH security guard Jorge Rodriguez raise the American flag, and Troop 160’s Bill MacBride played Taps.
Bill Conaway, PPH’s director of community relations, told the crowd that more than 1.1 million Americans have been killed in war over the years. He reminded people that the 75th anniversary of D-Day will be on June 6.
The PPH event also featured a moment of silence, prayer, a wreath laying by resident and U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War Don Bresnan, a POW/MIA remembrance table set for one and the national anthem performed by resident Audrey Alston.
Phil Grutzmacher, a 100-year-old resident, recited the poem In Flanders Fields by memory. Paul McBride, a Marine whose late mom lived at PPH, read the poem We Shall Keep the Faith, a companion to In Flanders Fields.
While the PPH ceremony was over, Troop 160’s day continued. The troop, based at Cpl. John Loudenslager American Legion Post 366 after its longtime home, Immanuel Lutheran Church, closed last year, traveled to the Burholme Memorial for Peace at Jardel Recreation Center. The memorial lists the names of local men killed in World War II and the Vietnam War and the words to a letter/prayer from George Washington to the governors of the 13 states. One of the names listed is Thomas E. Jardel, a 20-year-old Navy man killed in World War II. The recreation center is named in his memory.
Meanwhile, two ceremonies took place at the World War I memorial at the intersection of Cottman, Oxford and Rising Sun avenues.
One ceremony was conducted by members of Michael J. Crescenz Medal of Honor Rising Sun VFW Post 2819 and the Crestlawn American Legion Post 832.
Minutes later, Troop 160 marched from Jardel to the memorial to place a wreath above a list of Army, Navy and Marine Corps “Sons of Burholme” who were killed in World War I in 1917 and ‘18. ••
