About 25 Harley riders and assorted other vehicles and people rode into Edgerton’s Hillside Cemetery, Sunday morning, just as the sun scattered the rainy morning clouds.
During the brief ceremony that ensued, Taps was played and a memorial flower arrangement placed at the gravesite of fallen soldier Greg Gorter.
Suzie Kissinger of St. Paul was one of the riders.
“I do this because I have a daughter and a son who are serving,” Kissinger said after the ceremony.
Jackson residents Stan and Shirley Sater were other riders.
“I was a Vietnam Vet,” Stan said. “I do this because it’s necessary to remember.”
What the riders were doing before they remounted their bikes and drove single-file away from the cemetery was taking part in the 2009 Remember The Fallen Tribute to honor and remember the military service of fallen soldiers.
The Remember The Fallen Tribute is dedicated to the families and friends of Minnesota’s soldiers who served after September 11, 2001 in operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom or Noble Eagle so they will know their loved ones have not been forgotten.
Bob Buffington, one of the Pipestone American Legion members present for the Sunday ceremony, recalled how Gorter had made it home from the war, only to die at home from an accidental fall down a set of stairs.
“He was sworn-in in July (2008) as our (post) commander, and he died in August (2008),” Buffington said.
To date, Minnesota has lost 111 men and women in the Global War on Terror, according to the Military Salute’s Roll Call of Fallen Soldiers. During May, June, July and August, the Military Salute Project of Woodbury, will visit 80 of those gravesites (the number of soldiers who had fallen as of the project cut-off date of December 31, 2008).
Jeff Seeber conceived of the Military Salute Project with four other men, all Vietnam Vets like himself. They met as patients at a Minnesota VA Medical Center.
“You nod at first when you see each other and then you start talking,” Seeber said after the Sunday ceremony in Edgerton.
That talk led to a video the five produced in 2003 and many other projects, all with the goal of honoring and remembering those who have given their lives for their country. In July 2008 they put together the Military Salute project. The National Guard got involved, as did volunteers from Bugles Across America and the Minnesota Patriot Guard.
Before Sunday was done, that day’s riders would have visited gravesites in Marshall, Lake Benton, Trimont and Welcome, in addition to the Edgerton stop.
“We need more of this,” said Maurice Bickford, a Pipestone American Legion representative present Sunday morning.
The Military Salute Project has a web page at http://home.att.net/~militarysalute2/ with details about the Remember The Fallen Tribute and a link to the Roll Call of Minnesota's Fallen. For more information, contact Jeff Seeber at militarysalute@gmail.com.
