Lori Day of Van Buren Township and Pete Pitzen of Belleville will serve as the Grand Marshals of Belleville’s Memorial Day parade at 10 a.m. Monday, May 25.
The parade steps off from the Belleville High School parking lot at 10 a.m. and proceeds to Five Points and then up Main Street to Roys.
The Memorial Day ceremony, put on by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Polish Legion of American Veterans, follows the parade at 11 a.m. at the Veterans Memorial on High Street.
Lori Day
Lori Day served in the United States Navy Reserve for 11 years in the Nurse Corps. She entered in 1979 as a Lieutenant JG and received officer training at Pensacola, FL.
She was attached to a fleet hospital unit and drilled regularly at Selfridge Air Force Base, MI and had numerous active-duty assignments, including Naval Station Great Lakes, IL; Bethesda Hospital, MD; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; and Naples, Italy. She rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander on Sept. 1, 1995 and received an honorable discharge on Dec. 18, 2000.
Day said she thoroughly enjoyed her time in the military and feels it is an honor and a privilege to have served our country. She still takes seriously her Oath of Office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
She is an active member of the Polish Legion of American Veterans post in Belleville.
Peter Pitzen
After graduating from high school in 1954, Peter Pitzen enlisted in the Army on Aug. 10, 1954. He was sent to Fort Leonard Wood, MO for basic training and after graduating was sent to Fort Knox, KY. There he took 16 weeks training for radio repair.
After graduating, he was immediately sent to Bad Hersfeld, Germany with the 3rd, Bn., 14th A/C, performing Border Patrol during the Cold War. That is where he spent the rest of his Army career prior to discharge in July, 1957.
While serving in Germany, Pitzen was the Chief Radio Repairman for the battalion, and after solving an issue with decoding a classified message, he also was assigned as Message Center Chief. When his tour of duty ended in July, 1957, he was discharged as Specialist 2nd Class and returned to the U.S. classified as inactive reserve.
Returning home to Fort Wayne, IN, it didn’t take too long before Pitzen met his first wife, got married, and fathered three children. Finding that his finances were running low, a friend talked him into joining the Indiana Air National Guard’s 122 Fighter Squadron, so he could earn an income with monthly meetings and a two-week summer camp. Prior to the first meeting in October, 1961, President John F. Kennedy activated the Indiana Air National Guard during the Berlin Crisis and Pitzen was sent to Chambley Air Base in France.
About four months into his time in France, he was informed of a serious personal family problem and was given a leave to return to the states. In the U.S. he was reassigned to the 305 Bombardment Wing, at Bunker Hill AFB, Indiana. There he primarily operated B-58 Hustler Bombers and the KC-135 Tankers. He spent the rest of active duty with the Air Force until Aug. 20, 1962.
After one year of service, President Kennedy de-activated his unit and Pitzen returned to Air National Guard status. Being a single father raising three children, he resigned from the ANG with an honorable discharge as Sgt. E5 and returned to civilian life.
He is an active member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Belleville.