3 Maryland Service Members To Be Honored At Memorial Day Ceremony

TIMONIUM, MD — The 2019 Memorial Day Ceremony at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens is expected to draw 1,500 attendees on Monday to honor those who died serving their country. Each year the event recognizes Maryland service members killed in the past 13 months in particular as well as those who died in the Korean, Vietnam and World Wars.

Those recognized at the 2019 ceremony will be the Fort Meade cryptologist killed in a bombing in Syria, the Elkridge Air Force pilot who died in a Texas plane crash and the Maryland National Guardsman who died in the Ellicott City flood.

The patriotic observance will feature music, speeches, a wreath laying and 21-gun salute. This is the 52nd annual event, held at the Circle of the Immortals in the Field of Honor at the Timonium cemetery.

At the 2019 ceremony, three soldiers will be recognized:

• Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon M. Kent, 35, was killed in a blast set off by a suicide bomber in northern Syria on Jan. 16, 2019. The Navy cryptologist stationed at Fort Meade was on her fifth combat tour when she became the first female Navy service member killed in the fight against ISIS.
• Capt. John F. Graziano, 28, of Elkridge, died in a plane crash on Nov. 13, 2018. He was an instructor pilot with the 87th Flying Training Squadron whose T-38C Talon jet trainer crashed at Laughlin Air Force base in Texas, where he was stationed.
• Staff Sgt. Eddison A. Hermond Jr., 39, died on May 29, 2018. The Maryland National Guardsman was attempting to help a woman during the flash flood in Ellicott City when he was swept up by the current.

The bell housed within Maryland's 9/11 Rolling Memorial will toll as each service member whose life was lost within the past year is honored.

Participating in the service will be the Maryland National Guard, Patriot Guard Riders, Knights of Columbus, 229th Maryland Army National Guard Band, Maryland Sings, Common Ground on the Hill Veterans Initiative, singer Jon Wikstrom and piper Robert McCurdy.

Two soldiers who were killed in the past two months will be honored at the 2020 ceremony, according to organizers:

• Marine Corps Platoon Cmdr. Hugh McDowell, 24, of Chevy Chase, died May 9 from injuries during a training exercise at Camp Pendleton in California.
• Staff Sgt. Christopher Slutman, 43, of Kentland, was killed April 8 in a roadside bombing attack in Afghanistan.

There will be three memorial addresses at the 2019 Memorial Day ceremony at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens.

Peggy Marchanti, wife of fallen soldier Maj. Robert Marchanti II, will speak. Her husband died at the age of 48 when he was shot and killed on February 25, 2012, during an attack inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul. He was serving as a mentor to the Afghan National Police on his first deployment to Afghanistan. Before he started working full-time with the Maryland National Guard in 2008, he had been a P.E. teacher in Baltimore County.

Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski Jr. and Senator Chris West will also deliver speeches, while Alan Walden of the American Flag Foundation will emcee the event. Lt. Col. Lonny Wortham of the Joint Force Headquarters, Maryland National Guard, will serve as chaplain.

Before the service, the Elkridge Young Marines, Girl Scout Troop #4065 (of the Timonium and Cockeysville area) and Lutherville's Boy Scout Troop 340 will place 3,500 American flags on the graves of veterans at the Field of Honor, from 9 to 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 25.

When And Where: 2019 Memorial Ceremony

The Memorial Day ceremony will take place at 10 a.m. on Monday, May 27, at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens, 200 East Padonia Road, Timonium.

It is free and open to the public and will be held rain or shine.

The Memorial Day ceremony is held at the Circle of the Immortals, an area dedicated in 1967 that is reserved for Marylanders killed in action. The former owners of Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens began the event that year because they thought that the public was losing sight of the meaning of Memorial Day. The new owners, who purchased the cemetery in 2007, have continued the tradition.

Memorial Scholarships

There is a memorial scholarship set up for Senior Chief Shannon Kent at Adler University. Select her name from the drop-down menu to donate. Kent was completing her master's degree at the university while she battled thyroid cancer and had hoped to enroll in a doctoral program after being deployed but was essentially told she was not physically fit enough to pursue the program because of her health. According to Stars and Stripes, her family has appealed to the U.S. Navy to revise its regulations, which instead deemed her fit enough to be deployed into combat, where she was killed two months later.

The Restaurant Association of Maryland created the Eddison Hermond Memorial Scholarship to enable recipients in the hospitality industry who embody the values he lived by to further their education and their service to others. Hermond had worked at Victoria Gastro Pub in Columbia since its opening in 2007 and after the owners opened Manor Hill Tavern in Ellicott City, he worked as a manager there in 2017. "His life's mission was to make everyone else's life better," according to a statement from the Restaurant Association of Maryland. "This selflessness was no more evident than in his final moments on earth."

There is a memorial scholarship campaign for Capt. John F. Graziano through GoFundMe. Donations will go toward creating a scholarship in his name at Archbishop Spalding High School in Severn, which he attended before going on to UMBC. "He was just the essence of good," the president of Archbishop Spalding told the Catholic Review. "He embodied integrity, and character and kindness."