In memory
Published 10:22 am Tuesday, November 18, 2008
STACYVILLE, Iowa -- Try not being moved on Memorial Day.
Try remaining detached.
Emotion grips everyone in a stranglehold.
Watch veterans in their American Legion blue or Veterans of Foreign Wars brown carry flags down main streets.
Watch firing squads point to the heavens their weapons as flags unfurl.
Listen to prayers said, patriotic songs sung and the roll call of names.
See teardrops trickle down the faces of widows and mothers at grave side.
Memorial Day grabs hold of the nation like no other holiday.
This year, there are fresh graves in cemeteries of those veterans who have died in the war in Afghanistan and more recently the war in Iraq.
Tributes to the brave men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, who sacrificed their lives to preserve and protect freedom, take place with the pomp and circumstance or the private poignancy of a family kneeling before a grave in a cemetery off the beaten path.
In Mower County, veteran organizations will not let any comrade go ignored.
Tributes come in large and small sizes.
Grand Meadow's Legion Post will visit no less than 12 cemeteries Monday.
Legion Posts at Adams and Lyle will travel down dusty country roads to stand tall at the graves of fallen comrades, too.
Veteran organizations in Austin will march to a tightly-orchestrated schedule of Memorial Day events.
There are others.
Watch the veterans of Hale Penney Fuller Post No. 569 pay their respects, too.
Before Memorial Day is over, the Stacyville, Iowa, veterans will visit six cemeteries throughout Mitchell County and the waters of the Little Cedar River.
They are representative of other gestures in the nation's heartland.
Visitation Catholic Church Cemetery will be the first stop in Stacyville. Then it's on to Stacyville Cemetery where their Legion Post's namesake is buried.
Before the morning is over, they will have gone to Sacred Heart Cemetery at Meyer, St. Patrick's Cemetery at Wapsie and Liberty Cemetery at Little Cedar.
They will finish their rounds at Union Presbyterian Church Cemetery before returning to the Legion Post headquarters.
The motto for this and every other Memorial Day is the same, "They shall not be forgotten."
The man who refuses to let his world forget its veterans is Walt Adams.
Patriotism reflected
in life's work
Adams' front yard is adorned with miniature plywood soldiers, the Statue of Liberty and American flags.
The bumper sticker on his van announces his personal preferences for patriotism. A ballcap, too.
A Korean War veteran of the U.S. Army, Adams is the chaplain of Hale Penney Fuller Post No. 569.
"We don't want to forget a single one of them," Adams said of the Legion Post's efforts.
Monday's schedule was prepared two weeks ago by Adams. There is no room for error. Song, Pledge of Allegiance, prayer, reading, rifle salute, song in that order.
Adams has served for the last three decades as post chaplain and 20 years before that as a post member.
"Hale Penney Fuller was the first local boy to die in World War I," Adams said. "He contracted the flu on the way overseas and died in France. Hale's picture hangs in the Legion Hall with the shipping tags from his casket box on the back side of the picture."
Adams is the president of the Stacyville Cemetery Association. The cemetery is located on a small hillside southwest of the community.
He has maps of the grave plots in the cemetery and other paper records. There are 13 veterans buried in the cemetery: 10 from the U.S. Civil War and one each from the Spanish Civil War, World War I and World War II.
"A lot of this stuff is stored in my head, but I've got paper records, too," he said.
He is also the cemetery's caretaker.
He has help from his wife, Joan, and daughter, Julene Mueller, and grandson, Kory, a teenager, who is the son of Walt's daughter Jude and her husband.
The connection to the three generations is Walt's grandparents, Martin and Marie Matson, who are buried in the cemetery as well as his father, Ernie Adams, who was secretary of the same association Walt represents today.
When Paul Faas, the association president died in 1973, Walt became the association president. Walt's son, Jay, took over the secretary duties his grandfather, Ernie, held when the man died in 1975.
Visiting the cemeteries
Adams said of his interest in cemeteries, "I like to visit old friends as I mow the lawn or trim the weeds."
Of the six cemeteries Post No. 569's members will visit Memorial Day, Visitation Cemetery atop the hill in Stacyville, is the largest and arguably most impressive.
"There are 98 veterans from the Civil War to the present buried here," Adams said, walking between rows of tombstones in the shadows of the Catholic Church.
He stopped first at a striking tombstone during a visit. "Arthur H. Thome wants to be buried here when he dies," he explained.
The veteran has an impressive monument, bearing his likeness in U.S. Army uniform on the front and on the back images of the medals he won during World War II and a snowplow to commemorate the many years he worked for the Mitchell County Highway department.
But no other monument than the one over the grave of U.S. Navy Capt. John R. Pitzen evokes more emotion in the man who has seen so many soldiers come home in coffins for the last three decades.
Pitzen, a pilot, was killed in action Aug. 17, 1972, when his plane was shot down. He remained missing in action 22 years after his death until Nov. 11, 1994, when his remains were returned from the Republic of Vietnam and brought home to be laid to rest with full honors.
"He's the reason I started the MIA honors we do at the Legion Post," Adams said. "We have an empty chair at every meeting and we drape it with the POW/MIA flag to remind us."
On Memorial Day, Post No. 569 will observe a moment of silence for all POWs and MIAs.
Soldiers will not be forgotten
Adams became the man who would not forget any veteran in 1957 when he was commander of the Stacyville Legion post. "I started helping the guys who were putting the flags out," he said. "In those days all we did was stick a flag in the ground by the grave. That was back when Memorial day was May 30. We used to put them up the night before and take them down the next day."
This Monday, every salute, every rifle volley, every note of "Taps," every snap of the flag in the wind, every wreath, every "Amen" will be heard.
"These boys made the ultimate sacrifice. We should never forget them." Adams said while waking down the rows of tombstones.
Lee Bonorden can be reached at 434-2232 or by e-mail at :mailto:lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com