By RYAN LANCASTER
Staff Reporter
Thousands of service members, veterans and supporters braved a drizzly Memorial Day Monday to attend the dedication of the first Washington State Veterans Cemetery just west of Medical Lake.
Airway Heights Mayor Patrick Rushing and Medical Lake Mayor John Higgins, both of whom served in the U.S. Army, said before the ceremony that they were pleased to have the burial ground in their neighborhoods. “It's only fitting to have the cemetery put here in the West Plains,” Rushing said, pointing to the area's exceptionally high number of military personnel, both active duty and veterans.
An invocation led by Rev. Thomas Darling brought minds to bear on those missing in action and held as prisoners of war as well as recognize those currently involved in active duty. “We pray for our Armed Forces, who even now guard the gates of freedom. Preserve them from all danger and harm, comfort their loved ones who await their safe return and if that return is to this soil may they find it a place of rest and peace,” he said.
Gov. Chris Gregoire, 5th District U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, U.S. Sen. Lisa Brown (D-Spokane) and other dignitaries were led in the Pledge of Allegiance by 16-year-old Glenn Wight of Medical Lake. As part of his Eagle Scout certification Wight had fundraised to build 50 flagpoles along the cemetery's promenade and then collected flags from the families of deceased veterans for display.
Master of ceremonies Neal Sealock, director of Spokane International Airport and a retired Army brigadier general, called the land where the cemetery now sits a “historical and meaningful” place where people have long come to hunt, fish and play. He thanked members of the Spokane Tribe of Indians for blessing the ground, which is part of their ancestral lands.
Col. Bob Thomas, commander of Fairchild's 92nd Air Refueling Wing, expressed his amazement that the $9 million project was nearing completion only a year out from a groundbreaking ceremony that took place last Memorial Day. “The architects and construction crews must have started the second that last year's ceremony was over,” he said.
Interments are scheduled to begin June 7 and remains of more than 200 veterans are in line to be buried at the 120-acre cemetery, which has an initial capacity for 10,700 and an eventual capacity of 70,000. The burial ground will serve more than 140,000 veterans from Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho, as well as veterans from around the country.
Gregoire thanked some of those veterans Monday, saying, “Their courage and their dedication to duty is part of what is best about who we are as Washingtonians…No matter whether their service was long or short, in combat or in peacetime, they deserve the respect and the thanks of a grateful state.”
Ryan Lancaster can be reached at [email protected].
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