{"id":40328,"date":"2022-05-30T20:47:24","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T02:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/vfw-honors-the-fallen-on-memorial-day-in-mancos\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:55:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:55:11","slug":"vfw-honors-the-fallen-on-memorial-day-in-mancos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/vfw-honors-the-fallen-on-memorial-day-in-mancos\/","title":{"rendered":"VFW honors the fallen on Memorial Day in Mancos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A Veterans of Foreign Wars honor guard fires the three volleys in remembrance of fallen service members. (Tyler Brown\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5231 gathered Monday morning at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Mancos for a Memorial Day service to pay tribute to fallen service members.<\/p>\n

The service, headed by post Cmdr. Tom Enders, welcomed about 25 community members and ended with the firing of three volleys conducted by the honor guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cMontezuma County is an outstanding county when it comes to public support of patriotism for veterans. This one of the bigger crowds we\u2019ve had. It\u2019s a big event for a small community.\u201d Enders said.<\/p>\n

It was emotional ceremony for Enders, who lead Post 5231 through the ceremony with various traditional methods to honor fallen military members.<\/p>\n

\"Veterans
Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5231 members run through their ceremony to honor service members Monday in Mancos. (Tyler Brown\/ The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

According to Enders, there are more than 40 cemeteries in Montezuma County, and the group tried to plant as many flags as possible at veterans\u2019 headstones. They started Friday with the help of 20 volunteers.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Post 5231 did their memorial poppy distribution. The poppy is the official memorial flower of the VFW and has become a Memorial Day tradition to pay respect. The VFW also partners with American Legion in order to help each with their respective services because of the two groups\u2019 dual membership and to create a sense of community.<\/p>\n

Enders, who fought in Desert Storm during the Gulf War in the early 1990s, finds that learning the history of each veteran and honoring lost veterans are valued parts of the VFW\u2019s mission. The group has members from wars dating to World War II up to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertain words from the speech hit you harder than the other words. I tip my hat to the guys who can do it without choking up. I\u2019m not one of them,\u201d Enders said of the ceremony.<\/p>\n

\"A
A memorial wall at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Mancos honors local service members in the four branches of the military \u2013 Air Force, Army, Coast Guard and Navy. (Tyler Brown\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The VFW made multiple stops this weekend across Montezuma County, with visits to Webber, Goodman Point, Arriola, Lebanon, Cedar Grove, Peoples and Summit Ridge cemeteries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe brotherhood runs deep in organizations like this, and when we laid each other down, it\u2019s like part of your family,\u201d Enders said.<\/p>\n

tbrown@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018The brotherhood runs deep in organizations like this\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[568,28,445,598,185,184],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-events","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-public-holiday","tag-serving-veterans","tag-veterans-affairs"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84621,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40328\/revisions\/84621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40328"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}