Memorial Day is a reminder that ‘freedom is not free,’ Bradenton vet says

Memorial Day serves as a reminder to every American that “freedom is not free,” retired Army Col. William Michael Thurmond told those gathered Monday at Bradenton’s Veteran’s Monument Park.

“When President Lincoln was asked to dedicate the battlefield at Gettysburg, where so many lives were lost, he said, ‘It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining for that these honored dead, we take and increase devotion for that cause for which they gave,’ “ Thurmond said.

A few hundred people — including local veterans, their loved ones and Manatee County officials — gathered for the annual Memorial Day service at Veteran’s Monument Park alongside the Bradenton Riverwalk.

Thurmond, a veteran of the U.S. Marines and Army who served as a medivac pilot in Desert Shield/Storm and later as an airfield operations battalion commander in Operation Iraqi Freedom, was this year’s speaker.

But Lincoln may have been influenced by an older text, Thurmond said, quoting the Bible, John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, may he lay his life for his friends.”

When wishing each other a “Happy Memorial Day,” Thurmond said the sentiment should be completed by saying, “Happy Memorial Day to honor them.”

“I am happy to be an American to honor them. I am happy to be able to gather here in their memory to honor them and I happy to live in a country where people who never knew me would give their lives so I can pursue this happiness,” Thurmond said.

For Vietnam veteran John Andrew Crestani, attending Monday’s service was about honoring all those before him who sacrificed their lives so that he and others may have all that they have in their lives.

Among those Crestani, 70, was honoring was his father’s favorite cousin, Andrew, from whom he got his middle name. He was a first-generation German immigrant, who joined the U.S. Air Force.

“On his fifth mission over Germany, his father’s country and loyalty, he was shot down and killed,” Crestani said.

Similarly, his father and uncle, who were first-generation Italian immigrants, fought in the war, joining the U.S. Army, he said. His father returned home on a hospital ship after being injured during a parachute jump with the 101st Airborne. His uncle was honored with a purple heart after being blown out of a truck by German artillery, the sole survivor.

“My name I carry forward for their sacrifices. I appreciate them every day,” Crestani said.

Crestani’s own service went unknown or acknowledged publicly for many years, he explained. When he returned from Vietnam, he was forced to do so in civilian clothes instead of his uniform. It was not until a local service during the first Iraq War that Crestani was honored when all Vietnam veterans were asked to stand, he said.

“I am not a hero,” Crestani said, explaining that he was in a civilian supply unit and never saw combat.

“Most people in the service don’t see actual combat, but are in some sort role to make sure everyone has enough to eat, enough to wear and supplies,” he said.

But he recalls many fellow classmates, as a Manatee High School graduate of 1966, returning from Vietnam injured, or not at all.

More recently, his son’s sister-in-law married a fellow solider while in the Army. The couple had plans to start a family and settle in Bradenton once they both returned. But after 9/11, he decided to reenlist.

She came home pregnant. And he never came home after being killed by a roadside bomb

“I’m here to honor all of them,” Crestani said, as he held back tears.