With flags placed on an estimated 4,000 veterans’ graves, spanning 150 years, by VFW Post 1264, Evergreen Burial Park will highlight four notable veterans with live actors portraying the men of four wars.
The Saturday, May 29, observance program, remembering the veterans of all wars, foreign and domestic, will begin at 10 a.m. This Memorial Day Weekend, the burial park will specifically honor a Civil War union solider, a WWI soldier who served in the Stonewall Brigade, a WWII fighter pilot and a soldier who served and died in Viet Nam.
The VFW will place flags on Thursday, May 27th.
Don Wilson, president of Evergreen Memorial Trust, said, “Our veterans of special focus will be portrayed by Lee Anthony as Bill Overstreet, World War II fighter pilot of international fame who chased and shot down a Nazi warplane under the arches of Eiffel Tower (and a bonus story); Bud Jeffries as Randall Knisely, a 21-year-old Staff Sgt., Special Forces Airborne, 67th ARVN Ranger Battalion, D Company, 5th Special Forces Group USARV, Viet Nam, who was killed in action when a helicopter crashed after receiving hostile fire on October 18, 1970; Doug Camper as Captain Robert Henry Day, a notable postwar citizen and the only Civil War Union Soldier buried at Evergreen; and David Gilmer as Lewis H. Grant, World War I, Mechanic, Machine Gunner Co, 2nd Virginia Regiment (116th Infantry Stonewall Brigade) who died April 18, 1917, as result of an accident stateside 12 days after the US entered WWI.”
The free public walking tour begins at the Shuttle Challenger flagpole near the east gate and will move from veteran grave to veteran grave. Evergreen Burial Park is located between the Wasena and Raleigh Court neighborhoods in southwest Roanoke City.
