Fallen soldiers honored in Memorial Day ceremony at Rock Island National Cemetery

A sea of uniform headstones and American flags set the backdrop for a Memorial Day ceremony on the Rock Island Arsenal on Monday.
At the event, hosted at the Rock Island National Cemetery, hundreds came to honor fallen soldiers in the U.S. military and hear about the importance of the holiday.
Leaders from across the Quad-Cities attended the event, including Moline Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati and Bettendorf Mayor Bob Gallagher.
The Rock Island National Cemetery has around 30,000 soldiers buried, with its roots tracing back to the Civil War. Among those buried at the cemetery are two Medal of Honor recipients and John Junior Willie, a Navajo soldier who was one of the 29 original "code talkers" in World War II.
At Monday's ceremony, the cemetery's director, Matt Tomes, took time to highlight the 80th anniversary of D-Day, an Allied sea invasion that he called the biggest invasion in modern history.
On that day — June 6, 1944 — 2,501 American soldiers died. Six of them are buried at the Rock Island National Cemetery. Tomes highlighted Pvt. Leonard Brown, of Appleton, Wisconsin, and Lt. Robert Smith, of Chicago, as two of the six who sacrificed their lives on D-Day and are now interred on the arsenal.
He directed attendees to the Veterans Affairs memorial website — www.va.gov/remember — and asked that they share condolences on one of the 10 million pages dedicated to fallen soldiers.
"We will tell our future generations who they are," Tomes said. "Let us never forget what they did for us."
Following Tomes was Rep. Eric Sorensen, a United States congressman representing the 17th district in Illinois. Sorensen opened by emphasizing the importance of Memorial Day as not just a day to gather and barbecue, but rather a day to appreciate those who were lost.
Sorensen shared his personal experience seeing veterans who participated in the Honor Flight out of Quad-City International Airport, an annual occasion that takes veterans, free of cost, to the various war memorials in Washington D.C.
In September, 85 Vietnam War veterans from the Quad-Cities will participate in the flight.
"I can't tell you the impact it has on me to shake (a veteran's) hand at a memorial that's dedicated to them," Sorensen said. "I encourage families with kids, let them stay up late one or two nights out of the year and take them to the Quad-City Airport so that they can give high-fives to our veterans."
The ceremony's keynote speaker on Monday was Benjamin Enlow, veterans service officer for Scott County. Enlow served two tours in Iraq in the U.S. Army and shared memories of two soldiers he deployed with who died in action.
In an interview prior to the ceremony, Enlow said he thinks about these friends he lost not just every Memorial Day, but every day.
"It's tough, but we have to do it so we do not forget," he said.
In his speech, Enlow described the significance of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in D.C., which commemorates the tens of thousands of soldiers who have died and were never identified.
The efforts to identify fallen soldiers are intensive, as described by Tracy Van Deest, a forensic anthropologist who works with the POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Van Deest spoke at Monday's ceremony about two Illinois World War II soldiers — from Metropolis and Champaign — whose remains were identified and returned to the U.S. almost 70 years after their passing.
"As we look ahead to the coming year, I hold firm in the belief that by next Memorial Day, we will have even fewer unknowns and an increase in the number of families who have learned their loved one's story," she said.
There are more than 5 million Americans buried at the 155 national cemeteries maintained by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And that total is just scratching the surface of the growing number of fallen soldiers and deceased veterans — of the 582,000 veterans who passed away in 2022, 22% chose to be buried at a national cemetery.
That means the ocean of headstones speckling the Rock Island National Cemetery are simply the tip of the iceberg.
Monday's ceremony was punctuated with a wreath laying by Tomes and Enlow, the playing of Taps by Tracy Hepner from the Moline American Legion and an honor salute by the East Moline American Legion.
The Milan-based 123D Field Artillery Regiment also fired off a 21-gun salute with large cannons that rattled echoes across the Rock Island Arsenal. Wind carried smoke from the cannons past the sea of attendees and above some of the 27,000 American flags placed by volunteers on Thursday.
In their speeches, both Tomes and Enlow cited a quote from General George Patton, as their message for how to spend Memorial Day: "Let us not mourn that such men died, but rejoice that such men lived."