'In service of our country': Memorial Day at Mount Olivet a time for gratitude, remembrance
May 31—Addressing a sea of red, white and blue clothing and military-themed hats at Mount Olivet Cemetery, William "Bill" Hartmann recounted an experience from March 2003 that, to this day, prompts a profound debt of gratitude he feels for service members killed in war.
As a medical intelligence officer in the Navy, Hartmann oversaw the construction of a medical facility to support the Marine Corps just days after they entered Iraq.
As his team was preparing to board a plane on a temporary air strip being used by the Marine Corps, he saw the aircraft's flight crew performing a ceremonial procession, carrying four Marines in their body bags toward the plane.
After joining the ceremony and praying with the crew, he waited for the bodies of the Marines to be properly positioned on the plane before taking his own seat.
The plane was dark, he said, and the body bags were illuminated by the yellowish glow of night-vision goggles those aboard the plane were wearing.
Hartmann, now a manager for the Navy's Expeditionary Medical Logistics Program at Fort Detrick, said the experience is one of many that has reinforced his commitment to Memorial Day.
"I became unwavering with respect and personally stricken with a form of grief I still suffer ...," Hartmann said before pausing to lower his head and fight back tears.
"As I remember those military members," he said, pausing again to collect himself, "who couldn't be saved, giving their lives in service of our country."
Hartmann's emotional keynote address was part of an annual Memorial Day ceremony at Mount Olivet Cemetery hosted by American Legion Francis Scott Key Post No. 11, based in Frederick.
"Memorial Day is about those individuals," Hartmann said. "Not about the barbecue or the long weekend vacation."
Monday's ceremony began with music from the Frederick County-based Harmony Cornet Band.
American Legion members laid memorial wreaths at three locations around the cemetery's Francis Scott Key Monument to honor service members killed in action, including those buried at Mount Olivet.
The annual Memorial Day ceremony has occurred since at least the late 1960s, Willie Jenkins, commander of American Legion Francis Scott Key Post No. 11, said in a phone interview.
Dozens of people gathered at the entrance to Mount Olivet Cemetery for the ceremony. Friends Roswita Moxley, 80, and Erna Rodgers, 83, were among them.
The women were familiar with the tragedies of war. Both Moxley and Rodgers grew up in post-World War II Germany. The war, they said, robbed German society of its men.
The toll was personal, too. They knew men who died. Moxley said her father was blinded from an injury he sustained in World War II, leaving him unable to see his children.
The women said that, growing up in Germany, they would've liked to have seen ceremonies honoring soldiers killed in action like the one they attended Monday.
Both women are married to U.S. veterans, whom they met during the Vietnam War.
Moxley and her husband, Fred, have been going to the annual ceremony for the last decade.
They encouraged Rodgers and her husband, Robert, to start attending last year, after the couples met at a picnic at Fort Detrick.
For Rodgers, the ceremony is a reminder of how she became acquainted with America, through military culture and parades. Her husband served in the Army Reserves after they moved to Frederick County.
For the men, Fred Moxley and Robert Rodgers, the ceremony was a time to reflect on their service and all those they served with, and the freedoms in the U.S. they said they fought to uphold.
"This is what it's all about," Fred Moxley said. "We have to protect this stuff."
Follow Jack Hogan on Twitter: @jckhogan
