Belleville’s Memorial Day ceremony takes on new story-telling goal

On Monday a new goal was announced of telling the stories of all of the 51 men whose names are engraved into the black marble on the Belleville Veterans’ Memorial.
During the 11th-annual Community Memorial Service, Councilman Tom Fielder explained the project to research and then tell the stories of all of the servicemen who lost their lives in the line of duty in World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam.
The plan is to tell two or three stories each year at the Memorial Day ceremonies.
Fielder started with Pfc. Robert Gordon Petrimoulx. He said Pfc. Petrimoulx grew up on Robson Road and graduated from Belleville High School with the class of 1965. He was sent to Vietnam in 1966 and on Dec. 29, 1966 in South Vietnam he was killed by ground fire and his body was recovered.
Then, veteran Cornell Anton told the story of Pfc. Edward Alan Bies, whose mother led the drive to erect a monument in Belleville. Anton said Bies, too, was in the BHS class of 1965. He arrived in Vietnam in April 1968 and 27 days later was cut down by small arms fire. Anton said over the years after the monument was erected, Edward’s father Matthew couldn’t bear to look at the monument.
“These are our boys,” Anton said of the young men whose names are on the monument. He said it was as if God came and said to the parents, “I will give you a wonderful boy, perfect in every way, but you can only have him 17 years.” He said he doesn’t think anyone would have turned God down and would have enjoyed the 17 years of love and memories.
In tears, Anton said that he knows he would eventually be able to deal with the loss of one of his sons if it happened this way, but it would be a wrenching, terrible experience.
Then, Martha Brown and Shelly Brown-Chudzinski, of David C. Brown Funeral Home, read the names of local veterans who died over the last year and Linda Aimone, the First United Methodist Church Blessed Bellringer, tolled her hand bell for each name.
Kathie Steigerwald of Brown’s Funeral Home puts together the memorial service each year and this year she put her grandson Ethan Steigerwald on the program to give A Child’s Perspective.
Ethan was at the first Community Memorial Service as an infant and 11 years later was at the microphone. He asked for a moment of silence and then went over and shook hands with the seven veterans from VFW 4434 and PLAV 167, who were waiting to do the 21-gun salute towards the end of the ceremony.
State Rep. Kristy Pagan arrived on one of the 187 motorcycles that had ridden some 28 miles around Van Buren and Sumpter townships before heading to the memorial for the ceremony. Each registered cyclist had given a donation to be used for veterans.
The ceremony brought music from the Belleville Community Chorus, prayers from Pastor Robert White of Grace Baptist Church, across the street from the memorial, and brief speeches from representatives of the City of Belleville and Van Buren and Sumpter townships.
The Canton Young Marines were an important part of the ceremony, as they have been for the last decade.
Ross Medos, Commander of VFW Post 4434, played “Taps.”
Then, the ceremony concluded with the National Moment of Remembrance, established by Congress, that asks Americans wherever they are at 3 p.m., local time, on Memorial Day, to pause for a minute in an act of national unity.