As part of the annual Memorial Day celebrations statewide, the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs (ODVA) will again host a memorial ceremony on Monday, May 25, at 3 p.m., on the department’s grounds in Salem, 700 Summer St. N.E. The public ceremony will be held at the Afghan-Iraqi Freedom Memorial where the names of 142 Oregonians killed while serving in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, and those with Oregon military ties, will be read aloud. McNary High School’s JROTC unit will provide military honors. This year’s event will mark the second consecutive time since the memorial’s dedication in 2006 that names of Oregon’s fallen will not be added to the memorial wall. Oregon State Sen. Brian Boquist, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, will be the keynote speaker. Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was originally called, was first observed on May 30, 1868 as a day to place flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The holiday’s name was later changed to Memorial Day in 1971 and became a federal holiday to be observed on the last Monday in May. The most current list of statewide Memorial Day event locations and information is available online: www.oregondva.com/blog/2015/05/06/2015-memorial-day-events.
