PUEBLO — In Pueblo, communities came together to honor the fallen servicemembers on Memorial Day.
At the Roselawn Cemetery and Funeral Home, the graves of veterans were decorated with American flags and flowers. Community members gathered for prayers next to those laid to rest.
At the riverwalk, veterans organized a memorial
service filled with stories, anecdotes, and conversations about issues veterans face.
"It's important to honor those people not just today, but every day throughout the year," said former Navy SEAL and Pueblo County Commissioner Zach Swearingen.
"[Memorial Day] is a day of remembrance, it drives home some of the good men and brothers that I lost that I worked with overseas. And it reminds me that we owe it to all of them to live our best life every day because they're not here to do that," he continued.
President of the Pueblo Veterans Council Paul Hendricksen stressed that this day is not about celebration, but about mourning. Seeing people attend the event he helped organize made him feel proud to be patriotic.
"It's about sitting out here, supporting your local veterans, and coming together as a group of… patriots! To help one another, to support one another, to really drive home what those American values are. Because at the end of the day, that's what all of us served to do," said Hendricksen.
He has a call to action for anyone in the community who wishes to commemorate this holiday accordingly.
"If you truly want to look at memorial day and honor it as it is but don't know how...research a veteran that you may know, that you may have loved, that you may have lost, or if you don't know any veterans at all, search for them online. just to remember that person's name. Because without you remembering, they're no longer here with us and they'll no longer be remembered".
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