By Kevin Spradlin
PeeDeePost.com
DOBBINS HEIGHTS — Speakers at an intimate and solemn Memorial Day ceremony at Dobbins Heights Town Hall focused on the need to help veterans who are still living and for the rest of the general public to do its part to support them.
Mayor Antonio Blue, an Army veteran, said the federally recognized holiday “should not be a day we take off or take lightly. We all know someone who served in the military.”
Army veteran Edward Lewis Tender, of Dobbins Heights, was the featured speaker for the 25-minute ceremony. His message focused on what others can do to help veterans who served to help protect freedoms Americans enjoy today.
“We must do our part to give thanks to those who gave their lives,” Tender said.
He challenged those in attendance to go to Dobbins Heights cemetery, or another cemetery, and “clean a veteran’s grave.”
However, more can and should be done to aid veterans who are still here, he said.
“Vets have died waiting to get help” from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Tender said.
He noted that struggle isn’t relegated to veterans living in California, Arizona or New York. One Dobbins Heights veteran who in 1976 had applied for VA medical benefits was approved on March 10, 2014. Tender said that veteran died two days later, still in a coma and “he never knew he got it.”
Such a wait is unacceptable, Tender said.
“Let’s do something about it,” he said. “In honor of our veterans who are still here on earth and need help, let’s help them.”
Minister Ozie Felder Jr., an Army veteran, gave the invocation. The group enjoyed a recorded audio performance of the National Anthem by Marvin Gaye and stood to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in unison.
Army veteran Lennard Reddick performing the laying of the wreath and Rev. Robert Richardson offered the benediction. Nearly two dozen people were in attendance.