Memorial Day events honor region's vets

COEUR d’ALENE — Memorial Day for Chickie Berry is painful.

It’s special, but it hurts, too.

“It’s kind of hard for me to hold it together,” the Spirit Lake woman said Monday after the first of several honorary services she would attend on the holiday. “But it’s something I have to do.”

Berry’s father was killed in World War II when Berry was 5 years old.

“I remember when the telegram came,” she said. “Delivered by a little teenager on a bicycle.”

Every Memorial Day, the memories hit a little harder. But the support from others, especially servicemen and women, during the annual ceremonies helps Berry reflect and heal.

“It kind of feels like a hug from my dad,” said Berry, a member of the American World War II Orphan Network.

Monday, North Idaho — just as the rest of nation did — stopped to pay tribute to the fallen servicemen and women, honoring lost veterans with several ceremonies from Coeur d’Alene to Blanchard. Wreaths were placed in cemeteries, rifles discharged, and prayers were said as tokens of respect and reflection.

“Wherever the body of a comrade lies, there the ground is hallowed,” said Wes Anderson, Veteran of Foreign War Post 889 member and Vietnam veteran, during a ceremony at Forest Cemetery in Coeur d’Alene.

It’s important to honor their memory, he said, as a way to show appreciation and “so we do not forget that they gave their lives.”

Fellow VFW Post 889 member Jim Shepperd said he asks himself almost daily why he made it through the second World War, while some of his friends didn’t.

“It’s a question that really has no answer, I guess,” he said at Veteran’s Memorial Park, near the Third Street Boat Launch following a morning ceremony. “But it is a question.”

Ceremonies took place in Post Falls, Rathdrum, Spirit Lake, Blanchard and Athol by veterans organizations.

In Post Falls, more than 200 people attended a ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery.

Brad Cree, who served in the Navy, took his two daughters to Forest Ceremony Monday so they could learn the meaning behind the day.

“It’s not a great day for a barbecue or to mow the lawn,” he said. “It’s a day of recognition for those who fell for our freedom.”