Holiday Crowd Takes Time to Remember Fallen Vets

A few hundred people took time away from the beach, boardwalk and barbecues on Monday morning in Ocean City to remember the veterans who died in service of their country — and that was the theme of a keynote address by U.S. Army Lt. Col. Kenneth Patterson at a Memorial Day Service at Veterans Memorial Park.

"They should be the priority, and they should be remembered," Patterson said.

Patterson — who earned Bronze Stars during two different tours of duty in Iraq amid a long and diverse Army career — asked the audience to thank and take care of veterans.

"Remember them. They have earned it," he said to a standing ovation.

The same theme was the foundation of the traditional "Reading of the Honor Roll," a list of the veterans with close ties to Ocean City who died during combat.

This year, the Honor Roll included new names based on research by Jim Houck, past commander and judge advocate of American Legion Post 524 in Ocean City. 

Houck created a booklet describing the 52 local men who died in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The booklet was distributed to everybody at Monday's ceremony, and the names of the men are included on plaques affixed to a brick wall at Veterans Memorial Park.

Houck's history offers a glimpse of the ordinary men — sons and fathers, postmen and supermarket employees — who were called upon to make extraordinary sacrifices.

Some died cruelly close to the end of combat — like Jack Mintzer, an Ocean City High School athlete and lifeguard, who was killed in Germany on April 26, just two weeks before "Victory in Europe" day. William Fehrle, an Ocean City roofer, was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, and died in a POW camp shortly before it was liberated by U.S. forces.

Some died of disease. Pneumonia killed four Ocean City soldiers in the field in World War I.

All served honorably, and Houck's booklet provides an veritable atlas of military campaigns — with Ocean City veterans serving from Guadalcanal in the Pacific to D-Day in Europe, from Argonne in World War I to Phu Bai in the Vietnam War.

The Wall of Honor at Veterans Memorial Park remains a year-round tribute to Ocean City's fallen veterans.

"We owe them everything for what we have," Mayor Jay Gillian said.