Not 'just another holiday': Streamwood pays solemn tribute to the fallen
The table was set for five Sunday at the Streamwood Veterans Memorial, but the empty chairs surrounding it waited in vain, each representing missing Americans from every branch of military service.
The plates held a slice of lemon, a reminder of the bitter fate of those captured or missing in a foreign land.
The POW-MIA table ceremony was among the solemn observances Sunday as Streamwood held its 31st annual Memorial Day observance to honor service members who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
“Those who shared the most difficult of times and trials cannot ever be separated from each other,” Streamwood Village President Billie Roth said. “Life can be hard for anyone. But can we imagine a more difficult life than that of those in uniform, who served far from home and worked so valiantly to extend the reach of liberty and freedom among oppressed peoples?”
The observance included the raising of each service flag as the Spring Valley Concert band played songs representing every branch. The Medinah Highlanders bagpipes and drums accompanied the raising of the POW-MIA flag.
“Americans everywhere should pause to remember all the men and women who died in service to our country,” said Kathryn Serbin, a member of the Streamwood Veterans Memorial Commission who served more than 26 years in the Navy. “This idea is to keep Memorial Day from becoming just another holiday.”
Army Sgt. Jim Sychowski not only took part in the table ceremony, but he also walked the overnight vigil leading to Sunday's observance along the path lined with commemorative stones marking the men who served and the casualties from each war dating back to the Revolutionary War.
Sychowski, who served in the 1970s and then in the late 1980s and early 1990s, comes from a military family; his grandfather was wounded in World War I and his father served in a submarine off the coast of Japan in World War II.
“I did this for all the men and women who never came home,” he said.