ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) – Chapel Hill Memorial Garden hosts a remembrance ceremony, and gifts a retired flag of honor to a veterans family.
Luann Bergeman relives the passing of his late father Eugene Lestikow, who was an Army soldier in the mid-sixties. Although this Memorial Day was different than the rest because she received a flag in memory of his military service and bravery.
“…didn’t go, just to Kentucky but he wasn’t in deployment anywhere. Um, and then, so today he was one of the um flags that they retired,” said Bergeman.
Lestikow’s flag is just one of more than 250 flown Monday afternoon at Freeport’s Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens. Each year the ceremony hosts a gathering, bringing veteran families together to honor the heroes they have lost. Organizers create an ‘Avenue of Flags’ that line the roads weaving in through the cemetery grounds.
One banner for every veteran is flown in the air, and after the ceremony the flag is returned to loved ones with a heavy heart.
Chapel Hill treasurer and manager, Bryan Norton, says his family has been hosting this event for more than 25 years.
“It’s just something that we’ve always done as a family. Is our veterans have always been a hell of a place of honor in Chapel Hill. We’ve always felt that it was our duty to honor them through the avenue of flags,” said Norton.
The flags are a part of a larger display which includes a Court of Honor that carries five bronze plaques recognizing the branches of our nation’s defense.
Bergeman is proud of her father’s service as a soldier and glad that other’s know the sacrifice he, and so many others, made for our country.
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