BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Keystone Heights-area residents placed Christmas wreaths on the graves of veterans during the area’s Wreaths Across America observance.
A color guard from Keystone Heights Junior-Senior High School presented the colors, and girls from the American Heritage Girls chapters at Gadara Baptist Church and Friendship Bible Church led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance.
2.7 million wreaths
Master of ceremonies, Mark Alexander, recalled the history of the Wreaths Across America movement.
He said the ceremony’s founder, Morrill Worcester, was inspired when the 12-year-old paper boy won a trip to Washington, D.C., and visited Arlington National Cemetery.
The teenager’s father owned a wreath company.
“It moved him in such a special way,” said Alexander, “that he decided when he inherited the company from his father that he would get something very special started, and he did that in 1992 with the first wreaths, 5,000 of them being placed at Arlington in the old section.”
From there, the wreath laying grew to 2022’s event, in which 2.7 million wreaths were placed in 3.702 locations.
“Every state in the US and its territories participate in this event,” Alexander said, adding that the event has now gone international as overseas cemeteries with American service members’ remains also participating. “So, it’s pretty significant that we have a nationwide event like this at this time.”
We are honored to know you
Keystone Heights Mayor Nina Rodenroth asked the audience to appreciate the freedoms they enjoy at the cost of veterans who sacrificed their lives.
“We can raise our children to believe as we do,” she said. “We can travel from one end of this great nation to the other and not have to ask for permission to go. We are free to vote for whomever we feel should be in government office, and we answer to no one but our own feelings. We have the right to succeed. We have the right to fail at whatever endeavor we wish to pursue.”
The mayor acknowledged that in addition to the veterans buried at the Keystone Heights cemetery, many in the crowd also sacrificed to preserve the freedoms of Americans.
“We thank those who gave their lives to keep us free, and we shall not forget them,” she said. “Today, many of you here are veterans of wars and conflicts that America has had to fight to protect the innocent and the oppressed. America has always been the first nation to stand up for the freedom of people from around the world. Many of you here today have answered that call and served your country well. We are here today to thank you. As your mayor and on behalf of the City of Keystone Heights, we are honored to know you.”
The girl of his dreams
Keynote speaker Ltc. James F. Taylor told the audience that he moved to the Lake Region from Perry five months ago.
The retired Air National Guard chaplain told the audience about a fellow Perry resident, Ed Sheffield.
He said Sheffield was captured by North Korean and Chinese forces during the Korean War and spent 37 months in captivity.
“He survived a hundred-mile death march in which 105 of his fellow soldiers did not survive,” said Taylor. “And despite having been shot, bayonetted, and having a broken back, you just had to know Mr. Ed. He survived subfreezing temperatures and all of those things. He survived hunger and torture. But instead of being armed with a rifle, he became armed with a pick and a shovel. And during those three years, he went from 185 pounds to less than a hundred pounds.”
Taylor, the Senior Pastor at Keystone Heights Methodist Church, added that Sheffield said he survived the ordeal partly due to the toughness instilled into him during his rural, North Florida upbringing.
“He kept his mind busy while in captivity,” added Taylor. “He told me that he built houses in his mind while he had that pickax and that shovel. While doing all that work, he kept his mind busy by thinking about how many trees and how many board feet he could get per tree and what kind of house he could build, and that’s how he kept his mind busy.”
Taylor said the POW also recalled boyhood memories of hunting wild hogs in his native Taylor County and dreamed of marrying a beautiful blonde girl when he returned home.
Upon his return to Florida, the City of Perry celebrated his repatriation with Ed Sheffield Day.
Taylor said that during the festivities, the honoree spotted a beautiful blonde member of the high school glee club named Jamie.
She was literally the girl of his dreams.
“After the celebration,” Taylor continued, “Jamie walked up to the bench where Ed was sitting and said, ‘Welcome home, my name is Jamie,’ and that’s how it all started.”
The couple was married for 70 years, but it wasn’t until 20 years into their marriage that Sheffield told his bride about his earlier vision of her while in captivity and that he had picked her out of the glee club crowd before she introduced herself to him.
“Mr. Ed passed away this August,” Taylor said, “and I had the honor and privilege of officiating at his ceremony. I’m hoping that today someone in Tallahassee at the National Cemetery is placing a wreath at his marker.”
Prayed all night for her Daddy
Taylor also drew on his Middle East deployment, recalling that his daughter, now in her twenties, told him she spent an entire night praying for him when she was two after her mother told her that Taylor’s unit was under attack.
“She told me that night she lay in bed, and she prayed all night for her Daddy and her Daddy’s airman and her Daddy’s soldiers,” Taylor said. “She shared that with me for the first time just this past week, and I just thought, it’s not just about the veterans, it’s not just about the ones that go, it’s about the families, the spouses and the kids. It’s about the ones that are at home.”
Taylor reinforced the importance of supporting families by recounting the story of Army Sgt. Scott C. Rose, who died in a Blackhawk helicopter crash near Tikrit, Iraq, in 2003.
Seven people died in the crash, and Taylor was assigned to collect and catalog the personal effects of the deceased.
“We had the bodies at the morgue, and we were going through personal effects, putting them in the Ziploc bags and tagging everything,” Taylor recalled. “There was a young man, and his name was Scott Rose. He was an Army warrant officer. And in his front pocket, in his flight suit, there was a picture of a young girl, a baby. Her name was Megan Louise Rose, a little baby he had never met.”
Taylor said that the infant had been born after Rose left on deployment.
“That little girl is probably all grown up now, and she grew up without her Daddy,” Taylor said. “I think of her almost every day and have prayed for her all these years.”
“I pray someone is placing a wreath at Scott Rose’s marker today,” Taylor said. “What a beautiful statement it is that we think of them. Knowing that they are remembered is the kindest gesture we can offer them and their families.”
