The 15th Memorial Day celebration sponsored by Colorado City/Rye Cuerno Verde VFW Post 7305, in conjunction with the Colorado City Cemetery District was held Monday at 9:00 a.m.
The 75-100 people in atten dance remembered the 118 veterans buried in the Brookside Cemetery in Rye; six in the Olivet Cemetery in Rye and the 42 interred veterans in the Colorado City Cemetery, as well as over a million others who have given their lives in the service of their country.
Reverend Jeff Moats, of the Greenhorn Valley Baptist Church and a U.S. Air Force Veteran who served in the Gulf War-Desert Storm, not only shared the invocation and the benediction, but as the speaker drew a sharp contrast for those in attendance.
He shared how he remembered December 7. Moats repeated December 7 and added 1990. “When I got my Bachelor’s degree at Ohio State University.”
Moats went on to share that shorty after graduation he participated in Desert Shield which morphed into Desert Storm. Moats said he was honored to get the chance to serve and to pay back the debt he owed to the men and women who were in the military on that very different December 7 - Pearl Harbor.
“People like those at Pearl Harbor, my grandfather who fought in World War II, and my father who fought in Vietnam gave me the opportunity to study, the opportunity for a free life, the opportunity for an education and the opportunity for a career,” continued Moats
He also had the recent honor of the first salute with his daughter Esther, who entered the USAF as a first Lieutenant and is now stationed in Luke AFB in Phoenix, making four generations of service to their country.
Moats concluded with an admonishment to encourage everyone to remember. To remember those who had fallen. To remember the gold star families. To remember the wounded mentally and physically and to remember the first responders.
“Educate your children and grandchildren,” Moats concluded. “Because freedom truly is not free.”
Post 7305 Commander Fred Ettleman invited people in the audience to participate, and 14 names of family members who had been lost while serving their country in various conflicts.
Taylor Kenney filled the air with the “Star-Spangled Banner”, and all joined her as she sang “America the Beautiful.” Carlie Leach played taps and the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Honor Guard filled the valley with a 21-gun salute that echoed off the Greenhorn Mountains.
Along with the 21-gun salute the words of Moats reverberated from his opening Invocation when he thanked Jesus for “your life, and your death, which purchased our freedom eternally.”