Memorial Day honors

Flags flew vigorously with the southwest breeze Monday afternoon at Lone Mountain Cemetery and Stewart Indian Cemetery.

The wind nearly blew down the Carson High School Navy Junior ROTC Color Guard at Stewart. The high schoolers and the Marine Corps League Carson City made Memorial Day stops at these two cemeteries and the cemeteries in Virginia City and Dayton.

Sarah Grasso, a sophomore at Carson City, played Taps at Stewart even though she's not first chair in the CHS Band.

"They thought they wanted a girl so they called me," Grasso said.

The Miller family tended to some 14 family graves at Stewart with shovels, rakes and hoes. John Evans, Val Lennon, Dallas Jackson and Chuck Miller were among the Miller family members pulling weeds and grooming the simple dirt mounds.

"We're cleaning up the graves of our family," Evans said.

Stewart has a simple cemetery. Most graves are just mounds of dirt. Some have stone borders. Two or three small bouquets garnished nearly every grave.

None of the Miller family members died in wars but several did fight in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

"They came back," Val Lennon said.

David Evans didn't go to war but he was shot to death in Carson City in 1981.

Just then, Evans and Lennon were sprucing up his grave.

At Lone Mountain Cemetery, Rory Cass sat for a long time at the grave of his father, Claud N. Cass, who was born Nov. 7, 1929, and died June 12, 1998.

Cass laid four of his dad's Army medals on the headstone. The medals were all replacements.

"No one know what happened to (the original) medals," Cass said. "He never talked about Korea."

Claud Nass served in Korea from December 1950 to September 1952, receiving the United Nations Service Medal, the National Defense Medal, a Good Conduct Medal and the Korean Service Medal with three bronze stars.

Though his father never talked about it, Rory Cass learned that his father survived a mortar attack that had a 90-percent casualty rate.

"He stood guard at the peace talks at Panmunjom," Cass said.

Claud Cass was born in Oklahoma, lived most of his life in Southern California and only lived briefly in Carson City, in 1978-79. Rory Cass, however, decided to bury his father in Carson City because Claud's mother, Bonnie Roberts Pugh, is buried at Lone Mountain and Claud's brother, Gerald Cass, lives in Carson City as does Rory Cass.

Lone Mountain's Memorial Day ceremony commemorated the 50th anniversary of the start of the Korean War with the United States committing support to South Korea on June 27, 1950.

Retired Air Force Lt. Bill McConnell remembered Civil War veterans and retired Air Force Sgt. Tod Jennings remembered the "police action to suppress a bandit raid" in Korea.

Pastor Bruce Henderson at Church of Christ turned to cinema - more specifically a review of the movie "U-571" - to make his point about veterans who fought in the nation's wars.

"How can we ever repay such a debt?" Henderson said. "The answer, of course, is we can't. All we can do is express our gratitude. The movie reminds us to say thank you."