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Thomasville Memorial Day Celebration 2009
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The story of the pin: The theme of this year’s event is “Honoring Citizen Soldiers.” My son, Patrick, using a photograph from prior observance, designed this pin.The figure on the left is the Concord Minuteman statue with a rifle in one hand and the plow in the other. Robert Hundley is the elderly gentleman in the wheel chair.
This is the story of his last Memorial Day. It is about Robert, not me, but I can't tell it without me in it.
Robert Hundley was a WWII veteran and a good friend of mine. He was a really sweet guy, none better. This is picture from 2003. His wife Eloise was the organist for my church for fifty years. Robert had become so frail in 2005 that Eloise had to put him in a nursing home since she could not care for him by herself. I was not part of the Thomasville Memorial Day Freedom Celebration at the time but on the way as an observer, Pat and I said that we hoped Robert could come because he really enjoyed the Memorial Day events. As it happened he didn't think he was going to make it but his nurses and family kept encouraging him for a week or so before Memorial Day. That day he actually felt like going, so he did.
After we arrived I went to the concession stand to get a drink and I saw Eloise and their daughter Debbie along with Nancy Wright, Eloise’s sister, both frail themselves, trying to push Robert across the gravel parking lot so I went to help. He didn't have a hat so I gave him mine. Pat and I made it our priority to take care of him that day. On the way to the football field there was a steep hill and I wasn't going to be able to get him down it myself so I asked a major and a sergeant for help. Immediately they put down their drinks and carried Robert, chair and all to the lower area.
Toward the end of the event soldiers and some civilians carry 100 American flags (the same ones in the parade) and post them in a semi-circle around the speaker stand. I leaned over and asked Robert if he would like to carry a flag 
and he said he would. I rolled him down to the staging area and a friend said he would try to get one for Robert. Instead, in my most authoritative voice I shouted, "Gentlemen, this is a world war two veteran and he wants to carry a flag. Will one of you give up yours for him to carry?" Immediately six soldiers broke ranks and started toward him with their flag. He took one.
Here is the actual picture with as Robert is wheeled into position. Another soldier helped me get him over the high curb and he posted the flag.
Speeches were made after which we were getting ready to go home. As I started to push Robert toward the car, a lady appeared out of nowhere, knelt down in front of Robert and asked him if he was a WWII veteran. He was, he said. She said that she just wanted to thank him for his service. She was from West Virginia and her father was a survivor of a concentration camp in Germany. If it hadn't been for American soldiers like him, she said, she would never have been born, because they saved her father from certain death near the end of the war. She held is hand for a moment then she disappeared into the crowd. As I looked around all of the ladies had tears running down their cheeks, and I was having trouble holding them back myself. We all just stood there for a moment because we could not move for the emotion of the moment.
Sgt. Robert L. Hundley died three months later. He was buried in his U.S. Army uniform.
2009 Memorial Day News & Record Interviews
