City salutes local veterans at art museum tribute event

Ormond Beach Observer
Neighbors

Ormond Memorial Art Museum hosted a Veterans Day tribute Monday, featuring tuba music from Bethune-Cookman University students and a patriotic sing-along.

BY MIKE CAVALIERE | ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Ormond Memorial Art Museum & Gardens Director Susan Richmond asked all of those in the crowd, attending the city's Veterans Day tribute Monday afternoon, outside of the museum, to stand and be recognized. And about half of the residents in attendance, under the giant, white tent set up in the parking lot, stood tall and proud.

"Ormond Beach takes our veterans very seriously," Mayor Ed Kelley told the crowd. "And not just on Nov. 11. In Ormond Beach, we think about them every day."

Echoing that sentiment was the museum itself, which was built by World War II veterans in 1946. The vets raised $10,000 -- "an absorbadant amount of money at the time," according to Richmond -- to fund construction, and a plaque naming every local veteran of that war is displayed at the museum, along with statues in the garden, to commemorate the fallen.

The Embry-Riddle AFROTC Color Guard presented the flag, as Bethune-Cookman University's Tuba & Euphonium Ensemble, directed by Matt Simmons, a retired Army sergeant, played the National Anthem.

"I stand before you today proud to be here as a veteran ... and humbled," said featured speaker Matthew Ellis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. "I (immigrated) to the United States, and my first task was to join the Army."

But Ellis hesitated to only honor those who have died in combat.

"I want you to look at those who came home," he said. "(Combat) shakes the very fabric of his life, or her life. ... We honestly prayed, fervently, that those young people can serve ... without ever being immersed in that horrible word: war."

Before heading inside for refreshments and a patriotic sing-along, the event closed with a poem by Bonnie Marshall, mother of Ryan Kozimor, an Army medic currently deployed overseas.

Marshall also leads Our Soldiers, Our Heroes, a nonprofit which has sent donated care packages to more than 1,200 service people. To "adopt" one of the 300-plus military service people still on the group's register, visit oursoldiersourheroes.wix.com/oursoldiersourheroes.