My Memorial Day Speech
It was my honor to spend the morning with the VFW, our Auxiliary, my family and this amazing community. Here’s the speech i gave, if you were unable to make it.
Good morning, everyone, thank you Red Hook Village Mayor Karen Smythe, Red Hook Town Supervisor Robert McKeon, Our amazing Auxiliary, My fellow veterans, my family and all of you for joining us on this Memorial Day, May 26, 2025. Today, we gather not merely for a parade or a picnic but to pause in collective gratitude and solemn remembrance of the brave men and women who paid the ultimate price in defense of our freedoms.
For me, Memorial Day arrives in the hushed stillness before dawn, when every face I carry in my heart steps forward—comrades with whom I stood shoulder-to-shoulder in distant sandstorms; troops I helped train through long, grueling nights; families whose tears I shared as they whispered their final farewells. In that sacred quiet, the unspoken stories rise up, echoing off the marble walls of our national cemeteries and the modest monuments in every small town such as the ones you see today. Each name etched in stone is a powerful reminder that freedom carries the highest price—and that it is our duty to remember and honor that sacrifice. Today I will share with you two of these stories.
Jon Conroe, our VFW Commander, recently shared with me the remarkable story of Marine Corporal Jennifer Marie Parcell. Jenny grew up in rural Ohio, the youngest of three children, where she spent her afternoons volunteering at the local animal shelter and captaining her high-school track team. A curious and compassionate teenager, she often wrote letters to her older brother, then a new Marine, asking about life on base—questions born of admiration but tinged with uncertainty about her own future. In 2005, after attending her brother’s Marine Corps boot camp graduation at Parris Island, Jenny knew exactly where she belonged and also joined the United States Marines.
Assigned to Combat Logistics Regiment, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, Jenny distinguished herself through quiet acts of leadership—mentoring newer Marines, writing home weekly, encouraging those struggling with the rigors of service, and earning her rifle sharpshooter badge. In early 2007, she volunteered for deployment to Anbar Province, Iraq, as part of the Marine Corps’ Lioness program—an initiative that embedded female Marines with infantry units on patrol to conduct culturally sensitive searches of and interviews with local women and girls, gathering vital intelligence and fostering trust within the civilian population. This was a dangerous assignment and one she did not share with her family.
At the very young age of 20 and only a few months from going home, Jenny would conduct her last act of service. On February 7, 2007, while conducting a security search at a civilian entrance, checkpoint on her base, near Barwanah, Jenny confronted a suicide bomber posing as a civilian. She sounded the alarm and shielded her fellow Marines, absorbing the blast so that eight of her brothers and sisters might live. She died shortly after. In recognition of her valor, she was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star with “V” device and the Purple Heart. Her family—her parents and her brother—remember her last words as, “They’re coming. Get back!”: a final testament to her courage and her unbreakable care for others.
In 2004, I deployed with the Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment, one of the very first soldiers I met was Sergeant Christian Engeldrum—a New York City firefighter, former police officer, and U.S. Army veteran whose life exemplified the highest ideals of public service. Fresh from his courageous work at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, Chris answered the call again by joining Task Force Wolfhound of the Fighting 69th, and deployed to Iraq.
On November 29, 2004, in Taji Iraq, just outside Baghdad, Sgt. Christian Engeldrum’s patrol vehicle struck a buried improvised explosive device. The blast ripped through the undercarriage, instantly claiming both his life and that of Army Pfc. Wilfredo F. Urbina, and wounded FDNY firefighter Daniel Swift. In that moment, Chris became the first New York City firefighter to fall in Operation Iraqi Freedom—a solemn echo of the bravery he had already shown at Ground Zero. He left behind his wife Sharon, then expecting their third child, and two teenage sons. When his son Sean stood beside his father’s flag-draped casket and declared, “My dad is the greatest man I will ever know,” it was more than a son’s pride—it was the truest measure of a life devoted entirely to service.
Today, as we bow our heads in gratitude, we also mark a poignant milestone: fifty years have passed since the guns fell silent in Vietnam on April 30, 1975. Half a century ago, the long shadow of conflict lifted, bringing home thousands of Americans who had carried the weight of battle far from their families. Yet even as that war ended, its echoes—of loss, of courage tested, of moral complexity—have shaped our nation and our veterans in ways we continue to understand.
To the men and women who served in Vietnam—who endured sweltering heat, faced unseen enemies, and returned to a nation that often met them with silence or scorn—your selfless sacrifice turned a painful page in our history. You bore hardships so that future generations might live in a more peaceful world, carrying scars both visible and invisible that remind us of our duty to care for every person who answers the call of duty. Today, we also honor the 58,281 American service members who gave their lives in Vietnam, and we pledge that their courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten.
May all our Vietnam Veterans please stand to be recognized.
As we remember Jenny Parcell’s ultimate sacrifice, Sgt. Christian Engeldrum’s boundless devotion, and the end of the Vietnam War fifty years ago, let us recommit ourselves to the healing and support of all veterans—of Vietnam, of Iraq and Afghanistan, and of every watch kept in defense of liberty. May their selfless service inspire us to choose diplomacy over discord, compassion over indifference, and to embrace a renewed pledge that “never again” truly means never again to leave any of our own behind.
This Memorial Day, I challenge each of you to carry that spirit forward: volunteer at a veterans’ organization, reach out to a Gold Star family, or simply offer a word of thanks to a service member you meet. In their honor, let us strive for a nation worthy of the blood they shed and the ideals they defended.
I’d like to close with the stirring words of President Abraham Lincoln, from his Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds—to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
God bless Corporal Jennifer Parcell, Sergeant Christian Engeldrum, and every American who gave all. And may God bless the United States of America.