By Cali Bagby

Over Memorial Day weekend families plan three day vacations of barbecues and boating. In downtown Friday Harbor people gather to remember those who lost their lives at war.

“It’s a time to honor those who have fallen in battle,” said Minnie Knych local advocate for military personnel. “Whether you agree with the battle or not soldiers are going where they are told to go and do what they are told to do.”

In the morning islanders assemble at Memorial Park at the monument with the names of San Juan County’s World War I dead.

“Memorial Day pays homage to the people that weren’t able to come back, thats why we say good memorial not happy memorial,” said Commander of the American Legion Post 163 Shannon Plummer.

This year’s Memorial Day speaker is Michael Ballard, a wounded warrior, who lives off-island and served in Iraq as an infantry medic.

In the afternoon people decorate veterans’ graves and attend another ceremony at Roche Harbor.

Knych will be in attendance. Her husband and her father served in the Army and her nephew Sgt. Richard (Buzz) Robertson served in Iraq. In 2005, Robertson and his unit were in an up-armored Hummer when it hit a mine. Several of the men died. Robertson, now in a wheelchair due to his injuries, works as a security consultant and counsels military personnel with spinal cord injuries.

“It’s so different now. When my generation was growing up everyone’s parents were involved in WWII or Korea,” said Knych. “Now we’ve lost a connection with the military.”

According to the US Census Bureau about 23 percent of San Juan County is 65 years or over and many of those people served in WWII.

In the 2009 memorial service, Plummer, who served with the Army as a cavalry scout, told the crowd that 1,500 World Ward II veterans die every day and pointed out some of Friday Harbor’s veterans: Roy Matsumoto, a member of the US Army Ranger Hall of Fame and Noble Starr, who received a Purple Heart at the Battle of the Bulge.

Tom Starr still vaguely remembers his father, Noble Starr, coming home from the hospital during WWII. He recalls going to the beach with him years later and the sight of shrapnel scars covering his father’s body.

“I know what it means to have a loved one come back and I am so thankful he [my father] was able to come home and recover,” said Starr who tries to attend the memorial ceremony every year with his father.