For nearly an hour Monday morning, a crowd of more than 200 people at Jefferson City's National Cemetery watched and listened quietly as family members, friends and fellow veterans honored the lives of 130 military veterans who died in the past year.
As each veteran's name was called, a bell was sounded once, and a family member or a representative of a military organization, placed a poppy onto a wreath and then, joined by a two-member honor guard, saluted the life of that veteran.
The "Two-Bell Ceremony" is a main focus of the annual Memorial Day program at the cemetery.
"We're here today to remember the sacrifices of service members and to honor their service," retired Missouri National Guard Maj. Scott Englund said, in a brief speech before the Two-Bell Ceremony. "We first remember by pausing - by willfully slowing ourselves down, stepping out of our everyday lives and conscientiously reflecting on the past."
Although they came from "all walks of life," Englund said, those veterans "all shared several fundamental qualities. They possessed courage, pride, determination, selflessness, dedication to duty and integrity."
And, he added: "They didn't go to war because they loved fighting.
"They were called to be something bigger than themselves - and they answered that call."
Englund earned his 2nd lieutenant's commission through Lincoln University's ROTC program, then retired from the Missouri National Guard in 2007 after a 22-year career that included overseas deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.
He currently chairs the Missouri Veterans Commission and is president of the Missouri National Guard Foundation.
Memorial Day, he said, is to honor those "who did not come home, or came home broken and bent in body and spirit."
And Americans can continue to honor those veterans' service by "studying history," listening to the stories they tell about their service and "memorializing their sacrifices," Englund noted.
Historically, he said, "the idea" of what we now call Memorial Day began as "Decoration Day" and "arose from the ashes of the Civil War," which claimed the lives of "at least 620,000 Americans, both Union and Confederate." He noted there are a number of stories about the holiday's beginnings, including different original traditions in the North and South.
On May 5, 1868, Gen. John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the "Grand Army of the Republic" - the post Civil War group for Union veterans - issued a "general order" establishing May 30, 1868, as a day for "strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land."
Capt. Michael Turner, commander of the Highway Patrol's Troop F, read Logan's order during Monday's ceremony.
On that first Decoration Day, Gen. James A. Garfield - an Ohio congressman and later U.S. president - spoke at Arlington National Cemetery and the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were decorated.
In his address Monday, Englund recalled President John F. Kennedy's comment that ""we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.' He believed words were useless unless accompanied by action.
"That is why we, the many, are here to honor our veterans - the few who were so willing to give themselves to defend their brothers and their country."
Englund noted that Vietnam veterans were not honored when they returned from the controversial war, as the veterans of other wars before and since have been honored.
So Englund read the names of the 13 Jefferson City men who are included on the Vietnam Veterans Wall in Washington, D.C., and on the smaller, "Moving Wall" copy that will be displayed in Jefferson City Sept. 24-28.
Today, "though as citizens we may honestly and respectfully disagree about political decisions that put our service members in harm's way - we no longer blame the soldiers for that," Englund said.
Ending his speech with a moment of silence "for those who made the ultimate sacrifice," Englund asked those attending Monday's ceremony to "continue to make a difference with your words and actions, so that we can continue to honor them."