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NEWS | May 24, 2022

28th ID returns to Boalsburg for memorial service

By Master Sgt. Doug Roles

For the first time since 2019, Soldiers and friends of the 28th Infantry Division gathered on the grounds of the Pennsylvania Military Museum May 22 to hold the unit’s annual memorial service.

The COVID pandemic caused the cancellation of the event in 2020. A scaled-down version was held a year ago.

This year, the Iron Division’s guidons and banners were once again paraded down the walking path where Spring Creek splits the grounds of the division shrine. Gold star families, retired veterans and local residents joined currently serving Soldiers in dress uniform to remember fallen division members, from recent conflicts and battles long passed.

“They knew combat would be hard and dangerous. Still, they answered the call. And some did not return,” said Maj. Gen. Mark Schindler, Pennsylvania Adjutant General, of the division’s fallen warriors, whom he termed those that “when their names are called on the rolls, there’s only silence.”

Schindler, an honorary chairperson of the memorial service, said the past 20 years have seen unprecedented mobilization of Army Guard units. He noted the 28th has “answered the call and proved itself worthy of its reputation."

“At the center of it all has been America’s oldest and longest continuously serving division, the 28th Infantry Division,” Schindler said.

The ceremony included the traditional placing of wreaths at shrine monuments, a roll call of units which lost Soldiers and a solemn reading of “I am the Guard,” which recounts a brief history of the Guard’s domestic and foreign service to the nation. The tradition of laying wreaths continued in 2020, despite the official ceremony being canceled by the pandemic, when Tyler Gum, museum director, carried out the remembrance on behalf of the division and placed a single wreath at the shrine.

“The last two years have tested our collective resolve and challenged our Soldiers with many new missions in support of the commonwealth and the nation,” said Maj. Gen. Mark McCormack, 28th Infantry Division commanding general and event chair. “One constant through it all has been our adherence to traditions, although in many new forms and venues.”

Several family members of Master Sgt. Sean Thomas, a 28th DISCOM soldier killed in Iraq in March 2007, were present for the ceremony along with other Gold Star families.

"It was good to attend today. It's always a really nice service and it's great to remember the people who died and the veterans,” said Thomas’s daughter Alexa Thomas of Howard, Pa. “I try to come every year. I remember attending since I was about five years old, but I've attended since I was a toddler.”

A dedication of a new monument to division Soldiers lost in the Battle of the Bulge preceded the memorial ceremony. McCormack noted that during the battle the division’s ranks were filled by thousands of brave Soldiers from across the commonwealth.

“These great warriors left their families and homes behind as they endeavored to become part of a greater cause and earn their respective place in history,” McCormack said. “They were farmers, teachers, factory workers, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. But most of all, they were proud Pennsylvanians willing to sacrifice and serve.”

The event included musical selections from the 28th Infantry Division Band and a howitzer salute by the 17th Field Artillery.