FORT GIBSON — As a crowd gathered for Fort Gibson National Cemetery’s Memorial Day service, the surviving family of Ernest Templeton gathered around his marker.

Surrounded by thousands of white markers identical to Templeton’s, the family put flags and flowers into the ground, held each other’s hands and prayed.

The veteran’s widow, Mary Templeton of Tulsa, said the family had been coming to his grave at Fort Gibson since he died in 2002 at age 67. Her 10-year-old grandson, Micah Combs, just a toddler when Ernest Templeton died, placed a flag.

“It means we are keeping his memory alive,” Mary Templeton said of her late husband. “He was a great dad, a great husband.”

Memorial Day 2011 meant something personal, not only for the Templeton family, but also those at the official service.

Former Veterans Affairs Regional Office Director Sam Jarvis pointed toward graves of people he knew — friends and uncles buried at Fort Gibson National Cemetery.

“L.D. Sweet of the Air Force. Marvin Keys brings a smile to my face just to say his name,” Jarvis said as he delivered the Memorial Day address. “My uncle, Willis Jarvis. He got a Purple Heart and landed on the beach at Normandy on D-Day.”

Sam Jarvis then pointed to the left and mentioned U.S. Medal of Honor winner Jack C. Montgomery, for whom the Jack C. Montgomery VA Medical Center is named.

“He was someone I had never met,” Jarvis said. “And there was Donald Wann, right over there on the front row. “He’d been dead for more than 30 years before he was brought here.”  

Chief Warrant Officer Donald Wann died in 1971, when the Cobra attack helicopter he was flying was shot down by enemy fire in Vietnam. His remains were found 37 years later with the help of the North Vietnamese gun crew who had shot down Wann and his co-pilot. Wann was buried in Fort Gibson National Cemetery last August.

“And there are some youngsters out there,” Jarvis said, referring to veterans who served or died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

During his speech, State Rep. George Faught held up a jar and said the jar held American soil for which veterans fought and died.

“And a new generation of patriots are watering it with their tears,” Faught said. “We can never repay, for the price is to great, but we can stand up for liberty.”

Memorial Day morning, VA Medical Center Chaplain Forrest Kirk and volunteer Floretta Leatherman stood in front of the Medical Center’s Doughboy statue to read names of patients and former patients who had died in the past year. They also visited Memorial Park Cemetery, Booker T. Washington Cemetery and Greenhill Cemetery to honor veterans buried at those cemeteries in the past year. Leatherman said she read a total of 226 names.

Even when no others came to the readings, Kirk said he saw their significance.

“The reading allows us to be visible for them,” Kirk said. “It allows me a visible way to show my gratitude to those who gave their lives for us.”

Leatherman said she read the names to honor the veterans and to honor her parents. She said her father, Billy Reheard, was a commander of the Muskogee Veterans of Foreign Wars Post for many years.

“I was raised in a patriotic family, and I always participated in speech contests and events sponsored by the VFW and American Legion,” Leatherman said. “Mom was in the VFW auxiliary.”

Robert Vetter, who works in the VA Medical Center dietary department, attended the reading at the statue. He said he didn’t hear all the names.

“So, I don’t know if I recognized anyone or not, but I respect each one,” Vetter said. “I have cousins in the Army and Navy. My dad was in the Merchant Marine, and I was in the Navy.”

 Reach Cathy Spaulding at (918) 683-2928 or cspaulding@muskogeephoenix.com.