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Photo by Hans Hallgren

VFW member Bud Nelson plays the bugle Monday at the conclusion of the Memorial Day service at Craig Cemetery.

Craig — Silence, broken occasionally by the sound of flags rustling in the wind accompanied a Memorial Day service Monday morning at the Craig Cemetery.

Silence also marked the day Gavin Thompson, Moffat County High School junior, visited the Moving Wall when it made a temporary stop in Craig in August 2007.

"No one really spoke," he said, recalling his visit to the replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. "A few whispered, but hardly a sound was made.

"I, too, was speechless."

Those words came from an essay Thompson wrote for a contest that earned him a $1,500 scholarship from the American Legion Post 62 and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 4265 this year.

Thompson was the keynote speaker for the 2008 Memorial Day service organized by the VFW and the American Legion, with aid from the Sons of the American Legion and Ladies' Auxiliary members from both posts.

Between 50 and 100 people gathered around a mound of white headstones near the cemetery's entrance. Miniature American flags fluttered near almost every stone that marked a veteran's final resting place or represented his or her burial abroad.

Members of the VFW, the American Legion and the Sons of the American Legion read aloud the names of more than 550 veterans who are interred at the cemetery or have headstones there.

Since Memorial Day 2007, 14 more names were added to that list, said Bill Harding, Moffat County Veterans Service Officer.

Thompson said he has a deeper appreciation for Memorial Day and the meaning behind it this year.

He credits his visit to the Moving Wall for the change.

"It made it more serious to me," he said after the ceremony. "Memorial Day is important now."

In his essay, Thompson recalled seeing his image reflected by the memorial's surface, where the names of fallen Vietnam soldiers were engraved.

"Seeing my reflection behind the names made me feel as if those soldiers placed the future directly on my shoulders," he said. "Through that reflection, they passed on to me the obligation to care for the nation they left behind, to be as dedicated to it as they were."