Major General Tommy Baker Speaks at Huntingdon Memorial Day Event

HUNTINGDON (May 26) — Huntingdon honored those men and women of the military who sacrificed their life in service to the country on Memorial Day. The twenty-second annual event was held in the Huntingdon Middle School Gymnasium due to a marginal weather forecast instead at the normal outdoor venue at Thomas Park.

May Chad Edwards welcomed everyone to the annual event. Huntingdon Troop 73 Boy Scouts presented the flags and placed the memorial wreath. Marty Higginbotham sang the National Anthem, and Kaki Dillahunty performed a patriotic song.

The closing prayer was provided by Brother Hunter Jones of the Eastivew Baptist Church.

The audience gathered in the bleachers of the gymnasium to commemorate the annual occasion.

Major General Tommy Baker is the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Veterans Affairs. He deployed to Kuwait and Iraq as a commander of troops.

This is a portion of his speech.

Thanks to each of each of you for joining us for this Memorial day remembrance ceremony.

We gathered today to remember and honor our military service members we’ve lost as part of our nation’s unrelenting commitment to remain free. Today, our nation honors all who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

This gathering to memorialize our fallen heroes is not new to us or to the world, for that matter. For centuries in the ancient world, countries and empires honored their warriors, lost in battle.

Here, in the land of the free and the brave, the memorializing of our fallen started after our nation’s most costly conflict, the Civil War, when in 1868, the graves of Union soldiers were first decorated in Waterloo, New York.

Some might say that the remembered ceremony is began when Lincoln stood on a war-torn battlefield in 1863 and delivered the Gettysburg Address.

After the Great War, the graves of the fallen were adorned with red poppy flowers, a symbol representing consolation, remembrance, and death.

Today, we gather to remember the devotion, faithful service, and sacrifice, but we also mourn the loss of our following with our families. It’s a time of national reflection.

We can never let it become just another long weekend. The men and women we’re remembering did not come from extraordinary wealth. They did not pursue fame.

They simply answered their nation’s call.

Regardless of their background, religion, ethnicity, they each chose to serve something greater than themselves.

Currently, they’re just under 18 million living American veterans. And since General Washington commanded the first Continental Army, nearly 42 million have wore a nation’s cloth.

More than a million have given their life in defense of our freedom.