SPANISH FORT – On Memorial Day, surrounded by the graves of more than 2,000 men and women who have served the country, area residents commemorated the service of those who gave their lives for the United States.

The annual ceremony was held Monday, May 31, at the Alabama State Veterans Cemetery in Spanish Fort.

Retired Army Col. Pat Downing, chairman of the Veterans Memorial Cemetery Foundation, said the site is a special and appropriate location to honor those who have served and sacrificed for the country.

“This is a special place set aside here in Baldwin County by the state of Alabama as a final resting for Alabama veterans from our uniformed services, their spouses and also dependent children,” Downing said. “It is hallowed ground. It is sacred and it is very unique.”

He said the flags were lowered to half staff until noon to mark the commemoration that dates back to the Civil War.

“On this day we honor those who have given their lives, those who have made that supreme sacrifice, those who Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg said, those who gave that last full measure of devotion to their country,” Downing said.

Retired Admiral Kent Davis, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, said the cemetery is a valued part of the state’s efforts to assist veterans. The cemetery averages about 40 interments a month and is a burial site for more than 2,200 Alabama veterans, their spouses and dependent children.

“It really is an honor to be here at the Alabama State Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Spanish Fort on this Memorial Day to pay tribute to those service members who made the supreme sacrifice in honor of our nation,” Davis said.

He said that sacrifice secured the freedoms that Americans enjoy today.

Our liberty has not been secured without a great cost,” Davis said. “Payment of that cost was made with the lives of the men and women of our armed forces. Those we remember and honor today now number more than 1 million who have made this supreme sacrifice while serving. These brave warriors rest in state and national veterans’ cemeteries and in hundreds of other cemeteries across our land and around the world. Wherever they are, they deserve our honor, respect and recognition.”

“We are permanently indebted to those we honor today. They have paid the supreme price to keep the torch of liberty burning,” Davis added.

One of those who have served was Robert Andry of Chastang. Andry served in the 761 Tank Battalion in World War II. The battalion was an all-Black unit that was part of the Third Army fighting in France after the D-Day invasion in 1944.

Andry was wounded and burned in November 1944 when his tank was hit by German fire during a battle to liberate a French town.

He spent months in hospitals in England and then the United States before he would go home on convalescent leave.

When he arrived at home, he got off the bus in Chastang and arrived home as his family was preparing to go to Mass. “When I arrived at home, that was one of the most blessed days of my life to see my family,” he said.

Andry went to Mass with his family and the entire congregation celebrated his survival and homecoming. He said the prayers of his family helped him live to come home.

“I am here today to show that prayers and faith in God is bigger than any battle, it bigger than any war,” he said. “It is bigger than any circumstances you are in.”