Cass County, Logansport celebrate Memorial Day

May 31—The Memorial Day parade returned in full form to Logansport and Cass County this year, stopping at the memorials and going through Mount Hope Cemetery, the third largest cemetery in the state.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, last year was the first time in the parade's 56-year history that it had been cancelled.

However, the full parade was back, including WWII U.S. Army veteran Clifford Eckles as this year's Grand Marshal.

At the first stop, the World War II memorial and the Doughboy Monument World War I statue at the Logansport City Building, wreathes were laid, prayers said, the "Star Spangled Banner" was sung and a rifle salute was made by the Cass County Honor Guard.

Mayor Chris Martin addressed the restart of the parade ceremonies.

"As we decrease the restrictions, we hope to stand with those who served and their families," Martin said. "This is not a day to memorialize war. It's a day to memorialize bravery, courage and patriotism."

Among those attending was Jaxon Buck, not quite 2 years old and seeing the parade for the first time.

About a block west of the city building, as the parade travelled to the Cass County Government Building, he watched with his mother, Baileigh Buck, Great-Grandma Barb Buck and Great-Grandpa Joe Buck, a Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S. Navy from 1964 to 1974.

Although Jaxon enjoyed the fire trucks and cars in the parade, according to his mother, the family was glad to see the parade resume this year.

Barb said it was good to see the people back, especially the younger ones.

For Joe, it was also a reminder of those he'd known who did not come back from war, and his eyes teared as he recalled them.

The parade is important, and "Memorial Day is for the fallen," he said.

Also watching along Broadway in Logansport was Darrel Bowman, who served in the Army Reserves from 1968 to 1974.

He said that except for last year, he comes "every year as a veteran."

And he's glad the parade has returned.

"It's a celebration of those lives of servicemen that were taken," he said. "They fought for our freedom, and some of them came back and some of them didn't."

Many of the speakers along the two-and-a-half mile route noted that Memorial Day started as Decoration Day in 1868, a remembrance for U.S. Civil War dead on both sides of the conflict.

Cass County Commissioner Mike Stadjuhar (R- District 2) said the holiday gained momentum with World War I and World War II and encompasses lives of those who've served in all the U.S. conflicts.

Although people are able to gather again this year, some families will still be missing members due to wars, he added.

"It is we, the living, that need Memorial Day because it gives us the time to reflect," he said.

Cass County Veterans Service Officer Tamara Derrick said of the dead warriors in her speech, "I may not know them, but I deeply owe them."

From the county building, the parade went to the 6th Street bridge, and after the ceremonies of prayers, gun salutes and the national anthem, Boy Scout Troop 200 members Jacob Lupke and Braeden Benish dropped flowers into Eel River in honor of those lost at sea.

From there, the parade and audience moved to Mount Hope Cemetery to the Civil War Monument and then to the Legion Circle where more recent service members have been buried.

Mount Hope first started in 1854, before the Civil War, which ran from 1861 to 1865.

At the Civil War monument, Indiana State Sen. Stacey Donato (R, District 18) spoke about how for the first Decoration Day, 5,000 people decorated 20,000 Union and Confederacy soldier graves at Arlington National Cemetery.

At the Legion Circle, Cass County Veterans Council President Jim Stokes noted that when he started eight years ago, it took two days for the council to place holders and flags at every veterans' grave.

With the help of volunteers and Boy Scout Troop 200, it took an hour and 40 minutes this year, Stokes said.

As Parade Grand Marshal, Eckles didn't speak but rode in a blue 1969 Rambler driven by his daughter Linda Dayberry and waved to the crowds or stood at attention.

Eckles has been in Memorial Day parades for a long time, before this in his capacity as a Boy Scout leader in his native Michigan.

Dayberry said Memorial Day has always been important because of the number of veterans in the family.

The government drafted the 17-year-old Eckles on Sept. 20, 1946, and he served in South Korea until June 3, 1947, with an anti-tank company first infantry regiment at Taegu in South Korea.

Eckles was a guard patrolman, and his company operated a 150 Howitzer cannon.

He remembers Korea as being very cold, and his ears ring from the Howitzer.

And he was a natural marksman, despite not being an avid hunter or shooter before the army, he added.

"I always thought that every kid should put time in the military because they should learn what it's all about," he said.

When he came home, he raised two girls and three boys and worked mostly for Massey Ferguson.

He came to Cass County to be closer to his daughter.

Although Memorial Day has been a part of the United States' remembrance of the fallen for more than a 150 years, It officially became a federal holiday in 1971, part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 that also moved it from May 30 to the last Monday in May, creating the three-day holiday.

Reach James D. Wolf Jr. at james.wolf@pharostribune.com or 574-732-5117

Twitter @JamesDWolfJr