War and remembrance

By DAVID HULSE

LIBERTY, NY — Eric Nystrom’s voice broke as he thanked the audience for attending the Monday afternoon Memorial Day service at the Liberty Veteran’s Cemetery. “I’m just overwhelmed by the turnout,” the Sullivan County Veterans Services Director told an audience of about 150 people.

With ongoing warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was an emotional service as new service widows joined Gold Star mothers of earlier wars in making floral presentations.

Florika Dima of Bethel and her children were on hand to honor her husband, Army Sergeant Catalin D. Dima, who was killed in Iraq last November.

Specialist First Class Joseph Modica escorted Kira VonRonn in making a floral presentation honoring her husband Sergeant Kenneth G. VonRonn of Bloomingburg. Noting the hundreds of small flags adorning the cemetery’s graves Modica recalled that VonRonn, a National Guardsman, had volunteered to come to the cemetery to install the flags in past years, one year becoming ill after doing it in a pouring rain. “I never thought that one day we’d be here remembering him,” Modica said adding, “I’ll always remember him.”

State Supreme Court Appellate Division Associate Justice Anthony T. Kane was the ceremony’s featured speaker and he began by recalling the inner peace and personal security he felt in waking this morning. He spoke of the freedoms the nation provides and of the price paid to maintain them.

“How many others woke up this morning on this special day with an emptiness because a spouse, a parent, a brother or sister, a son or daughter died in some far off place, their lives cut short by the horror of war and terrorism. These men and women whom we honor today answered the call of their country and stood in harm’s way so that the freedoms of life, of liberty and of the pursuit of happiness might endure here at home.”

Kane spoke of VonRonn and of Dima, “a young man born in Romania, who so loved this country that in its defense he became a citizen and volunteered his service. We must never forget their sacrifice and the pain suffered by their families and loved ones.”

He also recalled the memory of more than one million service men and women who died in wars throughout American history. “These men and women did not go to war because they wanted to die, they went out of a sense of honor, duty and dedication to the principles and freedoms by which we live. Let us remember their sacrifice in a positive way by committing ourselves to maintaining and protecting our earth; by preserving our freedoms; and by continuing to wage war against ignorance, against poverty, against bigotry, against violence and against tyranny and terrorism, both here at home and abroad.”