Two World War II veterans on Sunday honored one of their fallen comrades - and all WWII vets who made the ultimate sacrifice - by placing a wreath at his grave during a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of the war.
Pete Adkins and Norbert Bernskoetter, escorted by the VFW Post 1003 Honor Guard, laid a wreath on the grave of Nelson Bennett, one of the first Jefferson City men to die in the war.
More than 70 people attended Sunday's event at National Cemetery.
Bennett was a 19-year-old Marine and former high school football player who was serving in the South Pacific. A local newspaper account at the time said: "He gave his life while operating a flame thrower on Tarawa (Gilbert Islands), November 20, 1943."
His parents didn't find out about his death until nearly two months later through a letter from one of his buddies, Cpl. James Moon. "On the morning of his death, he had burnt out a Jap pillbox that had been inflicting heavy casualties on the Marines, he had started back for a refuel and was not seen again," the letter said.
"We are here to make sure their sacrifice is not forgotten," said Michael Betts, a representative from Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, during the program.
The end of the war didn't come without a price to America, he said. More than 16 million Americans fought in WWII. Of those, 405,399 died.
In Cole County, 116 men lost their lives.
The featured speaker at the event was Jeremy Amick, a military historian who writes for Silver Star Families of America as well as a weekly News Tribune column.
Amick told the stories of three WWII veterans, including Bernskoetter, a Wardsville resident who was drafted into the Army in 1944. He fought as a ground-based rifleman in the Philippines.
"For the next several months, he fought on the front lines and was engaged in heavy combat with Japanese forces," Amick said.
On Aug. 14, 1945, Bernskoetter was participating in amphibious assault training when he witnessed American sailors jumping off the sides of a large ship.
"We wondered what was going on," he told Amick during an interview. "It wasn't until we got back to shore that day that we learned that Japan had surrendered."