GALION — Galion residents, and visitors from around the state, convened on Memorial Day to honor the memory of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the United States military.
The annual City of Galion parade followed its regular route, beginning at the American Legion on Market St. before heading east on Harding Way, then north, past houses adorned with bunting, and concluding at Fairview Cemetery.
Several hundred people lined the city streets on a warm, sunny Monday morning.
At the 140-year-old burial ground, an official ceremony commenced, that included reading names of local veterans who passed away since last Memorial Day with wreaths laid in their honor.
“The parade was more intimate than I expected, and it was nice to see so many families come out to show their respect for this day,” Megan Durham, who drove from Columbus with her children to attend, said.
The 2022 parade’s grand marshal was Jim Quaintance, a Korean War paratrooper from Galion, with Mayor Tom O’Leary as the keynote speaker.
Pam Cole and Jim Brocklesby once again co-chaired the organizing committee, working along with AMVETS 1979.
Earlier in May, volunteers placed American flags on graves at Fairview and outlying cemeteries across the county.
More than a million American men and women have been killed in battle the last 165 years. Ohio has long contributed more than most states, with well over 50,000 of those casualties.
Two of Abraham Lincoln’s most-famous speeches mention soldiers’ graves. His first inaugural invoked “mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone,” and the Gettysburg Address was delivered at the dedication of the military cemetery in Pennsylvania.
Similar parades also occurred Monday in Bucyrus, Cardington, Crestline, Mount Gilead, and towns around Crawford and Morrow Counties.
