Conaty: “… the honor that they so nobly earned”
MONTICELLO – The population of Sullivan County may be small, but more than a dozen ceremonies, honoring those who gave their lives for their county, state and nation, were held through the county on Memorial Day Monday.
Former county Veterans Services Director Al Etkin, in his usual role as master of ceremonies, led the well-attended ceremony at the county government center in Monticello.
“Let us make ourselves the friend and brother, son and father of
those who will not see their own again in mortal flesh,” Elkin said.
Etkin introduced a keynote speaker who is no stranger to Sullivan County.
Phil Conaty served as an assistant district attorney in Sullivan County, Village of Monticello justice, president of the Monticello Fire Department. He is also the newly installed president of the New York State Elks Association.
Conaty noted a long tradition of the Elks, dating back to World War I,
including an initiative that later became the GI Bill, enabling tens of
thousands of veterans to attend college after leaving service.
H is keynote address drew inspiration from Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln,
the latter for his immortal words in the Gettysburg Address.
Conaty said those few poetic words, remembering those who died in one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, stand today.
“It is also fitting and proper that we gather here today to remember and honor those brave men and woman who have given their lives that we might live in a free and prosperous United States of America,” Conaty said, in his own words. “But in the same sense, it is impossible for us to do anything or say anything that can add to the honor that they so nobly earned. Rather, it is our solemn responsibility to remember them and to give them grateful thanks that when their nation called, they answered with their lives.”
Memorial Day was born out of the Civil War. Three years after it ended, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) – established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. That tradition later became Memorial Day and was made a national holiday in 1971.
