Right click and choose "View Image" to see the photos in their original size EXCEPT for the 1st 3 photos)
Photos above courtesy Katharine Kimball Staff
Photographer Albuquerque Journal-Santa Fe
3 photos above courtesy Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Staff
Photagrapher Brad Jones
Linda (Joanie) is the lone female and Roger (hubby) is the lone civilian
in the photos
| Holiday honors
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By TOM SHARPE | The
New Mexican
December 15, 2006 Santa Fe National Cemetery one of 240 sites around the nation to host Thursday wreath-laying ceremony Six wreaths were laid at Santa Fe National Cemetery as well as 239 other sites around the country on Thursday morning to honor military veterans. This was the first time the holiday tradition has been observed outside of the Washington, D.C., area. Since 1992, the Worcester Wreath Co. of Harrington, Maine, has been donating wreaths for the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. |
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The holiday-decoration firm's owner, Morrill Worcester, gives 6,000 a year to Arlington plus another 1,440 for the new Wreaths Across America project sponsored by the Civil Air Patrol. New Mexico Civil Air Patrol Capt. John Gravel, who owns DT Publishing in Santa Fe, took charge of Thursday's ceremony, attended by Mayor David Coss, Councilor Chris Calvert and about 35 others, more than half of them in uniform. ``The freedoms we enjoy today have not come without a price,'' Gravel said. ``Lying here before us and in cemeteries throughout this nation are men and women who gave their lives so that we can live in freedom and without fear. ``We can worship as we see fit. We can raise our children to believe as we do. We can travel from one end of this great nation to the other and not have to ask permission to do so. We are free to vote for whomever we feel should be in government office, and we answer to no one but our own feelings.'' Mayor Coss said nonveterans like himself should learn more about the Santa Fe National Cemetery, where more than 29,000 people are buried. Among them, he said, is the man who taught him to swim and who was later killed in Vietnam. Linda Jett of Albuquerque helped lay the six small pine-bough wreaths on metal chairs in front of the speaker's platform -- in honor of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard and the 93,852 men and women listed as missing in action, some of them previously listed as prisoners of war. Jett said she was chosen because her daughter and son are buried at Arlington. She said Kristen Jett died at birth, due to the mistakes of a military doctor in Germany, and Kristofer Jett died of an allergic reaction in Greece while her husband, Roger Jett, was serving in the U.S. Army. Contact Tom Sharpe at 505-995-3813 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com. |
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