Memorial Day ceremonies set across Peninsula

PORT ANGELES — Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6787 Carlsborg will present a public ceremony at Mt. Angeles Memorial Park at 9 a.m. Monday.

The ceremony will include an honor guard from the Port Angeles Marine Corps League and the Port Angeles Post 29 Legion Riders Flag Line.

Various nonprofit organizations are invited to lay a remembrance wreath.

Members of the public were asked to help place and honor more than 1,500 small U.S. flags at gravesites Saturday, starting at 8 a.m. at Ocean View Cemetery, 3127 W. 18th St., Port Angeles, and at 9:30 a.m. at Mt. Angeles Memorial Park, 45 Monroe Road, Port Angeles.

Public and family member assistance is asked in picking up the flags from gravesites after 4 p.m. Monday.

Organizers of the ceremony reminded the public that “the Memorial Day Ceremony is a day to remember fallen soldiers, a day that calls both for solemn reflection and for patriotic celebration.”

Flags should be flown at half-staff from sunrise until noon, and then raised to the top of the pole until sunset, in honor of the sacrifices made by our nation’s heroes, organizers said.

Sequim

VFW Post 4760 will lead Memorial Day services, starting at 11 a.m. Monday at Sequim View Cemetery, 1505 Sequim-Dungeness Way. They will be assisted by American Legion Post 62.

American Legion members will then hold short ceremonies at Jamestown Cemetery (end of Jake Hall Road) at noon, Dungeness Cemetery, 2153 Lotzgesell Road, at 12:45 p.m., and Blue Mountain Cemetery, 1986 Blue Mountain Road, at 1:30 p.m.

VFW post 4760 will hold a ceremony at Gardiner Cemetery, 137 Gardiner Cemetery Road, at 12:30 p.m. This is where Medal of Honor recipient Marvin Shields is buried.

The public is welcome to attend all ceremonies.

Flags will be set out on veterans’ graves at Sequim View and Dungeness cemeteries at 9 a.m. on Saturday and recovered at 4 p.m. on Monday.

Port Townsend

The Marvin G. Shields Memorial Post 26 American Legion, Elks Lodge 317 and the Bruce F. Matheson Post 7498 Veterans of Foreign Wars will conduct wreath-laying ceremonies at East Jefferson County cemeteries on Monday.

Honor guards and flag lines will be present and will fire rifle salutes and play taps.

The schedule for services is:

• Chimacum Cemetery, 9099 state Highway 19, Chimacum, at 9 a.m.

• Fort Worden Cemetery, 1300-1398 W. St., Port Townsend, at 10 a.m.

• Laurel Grove Cemetery, Cemetery Street, Port Townsend, at 10:30 a.m.

• St. Mary’s Cemetery, San Juan Avenue and 42nd Street, Port Townsend, at 11 a.m.

These ceremonies will be followed at 11:30 a.m. by a concert by the Port Townsend Summer Band at the Legion Hall, 209 Monroe St., Port Townsend.

A Memorial Day program will begin at noon at the Legion Hall with a call to order, the advance of the Colors, Pledge of Allegiance, National Anthem, an opening prayer, the Missing In Action table ceremony, a hymn, Memorial Day address, a medley of service song medley, a closing prayer, sounding of taps and post-ceremony music.

A wreath-laying ceremony at City Dock, next to Pope Marine Park, will follow the ceremonies at the Legion Hall.