The Polk Township Veterans Memorial Commission didn’t cancel their annual Memorial Day ceremony. Instead, they recorded it for the public to attend virtually.

The members, their speakers and others involved in the ceremony gathered by the war memorial in Polk Township. They opened with a special thank-you to all of the front-line medical workers and essential employees throughout the many different businesses, who have helped to keep the country moving and shelves stocked during the pandemic. And they remembered those workers who have died from the virus.

A 30-year-veteran, retired Command Master Chief Linda Handley, of the U.S. Navy, also thanked these warriors fighting an invisible enemy, and spoke about the sacrifices service men and women give each day, both personally by being away form family and also of their very lives.

A total of 1.1 million Americans have died in all of the American wars, Handley said.

“Today, we pause to remember those who have paid the ultimate price for the freedoms we enjoy.”

Fighting back emotion, she read an anonymous quote, “I left home at 18. I learned to kill another human being before I even learned to do my taxes. I learned how to care about someone else’s life more than my own.

“I have friends in college and I have friends in Afghanistan. My friends in college go home for the summer. My friends in Afghanistan haven’t come home.

“I wrote my own will at 19. I don’t get enough sleep most nights. I don’t get paid much. I don’t know the next time I will see my family. I don’t know when I may go home. I don’t know much really. But I do know one thing, I have 160,000 brothers and sisters out there, and they make it all worth it.”

Capt. Jim Cameron, an active member of the U.S. Army serving almost 29 years and currently assigned as an assistant professor of military science at the University of Scranton, said Memorial Day changed for him when a fellow comrade, Capt. Jeffrey DePrimo, of Pittston, died in the Ghazni province in Afghanistan on May 20, 2008.

Cameron had served with DePrimo a few years before that, but wasn’t stationed with him at the time that an IED exploded beneath his convoy. Still, the words of their commander about De­Primo’s death rung true for him as well.

Cameron read about the memorial a few days after DePrimo’s death: his gun with the bayonet down was stuck into the ground, helmet on the stock, dog tags hanging, boots at the base, then roll call. DePrimo’s name was called three times, no answer. Silence, then a gun salute. The soldiers procession passed his gun, stopped, saluted and knelt in prayer. Touch his helmet, felt his dog tags and walked on.

“We are consumed with sadness and loss,” Cameron read from the statement. “Now, I know why Memorial Day means so much to the veterans we see every year. You know the ones, the old men and women in their outdated uniforms and aged caps. They’re remembering real places, real people and real suffering.”

Cameron asked everyone to do three things: remember the sacrifices, appreciate what those sacrifices have given us, and live well raising our children with honor and courage.

After the speakers, taps was played by George Moretz, and a wreath created by Millers Flower Shop by Kate was presented at the memorial by Matthew Schessler, assistant fire chief for the Polk Volunteer Fire Company.