Van Meter, Iowa — An outdoor Veterans Day service was held this past week at the Iowa Veterans Cemetery where more than six-thousand Iowa veterans are buried.
Iowa National Guard chaplain Lucas Murphy delivered an opening prayer.
Governor Kim Reynolds noted November 11th was renamed Veterans Day in 1954, to honor the generations of Americans who’ve served in the military over more than two centuries.
Captain Kevin Waldron, the deputy director of public affairs for the Iowa National Guard, noted the beginning of the liberation of the western front in World War II started 77 years ago.
Waldron, who was the keynote speaker at the service, did a tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2018. He gave a brief summary of a key battle Iowa National Guard soldiers fought a decade ago.
Waldron asked for a moment of silence to honor the two-thousand-61 (2061) American soldiers who died during the 20-year war in Afghanistan. As flags at the Veterans Cemetery flapped in the brisk wind, taps was played to conclude the service.
More than 700 Iowa veterans from wars dating back to the middle of the last century were buried at the Iowa Veterans Cemetery in 2020. The cemetery was dedicated in 2008 and sits on a hill just south of Interstate 80, near Van Meter.
