It was gray and breezy, and the rain fell intermittently.

Still, the colors flew.

And after the playing of taps, a crowd of about 70 shared silence at Bainbridge High School Monday in remembrance of fallen soldiers, before migrating to the American Legion Hall for a Memorial Day program.

“It’s been a somewhat painful year,” said Legion Commander Bill Beck. “But we understand that everyone goes, and that someday all of us will answer our final roll call.”

Beck shared a somber number: 786 American soldiers have perished in the line of duty since last Memorial Day.

The island has lost its own to war over the years, as the Veterans Memorial at BHS attests.

Among the fallen islanders are Seabold resident Loren Thorsen, who joined the Navy at 17 and died of scarlet fever nearly two decades later, in 1943, while serving in Alaska. And William Wayne Sands, of New Brooklyn, who died in a Navy bomber crash, also during World War II. And the list goes on.

Legion Adjutant Fred Scheffler, a Vietnam veteran, recalled losing friends and fellow soldiers in combat.

For him and other veterans, Memorial Day is a time to reflect.

“It touches people in a lot of ways,” Scheffler said. “I often ask myself what they would have been – they gave all their tomorrows for our todays.”?

Many islanders were injured, but survived their military service. Their accounts, like the ones of those who perished, are recounted in memory, and in newspaper archives and scrapbooks at the Legion. Examples are many. All offer a different window into the many wars in which islanders and their loved ones served.

Marine Sgt. William J. Park, of Hidden Cove, was wounded twice in a fire fight with Viet Cong forces in Da Nang in 1968, while trying to drag a fallen soldier to safety.

That soldier, he later found out, had already died.

Park almost escaped unscathed: he had been set to go home the day after the incident. He was convinced the Viet Cong sniper who shot him had aimed directly at the canteen strapped to the back of his belt. A second bullet struck Park in the shoulder.

After returning home to the island, he offered his assessment of the Vietnam War.

“It’s a funny war – there are no front lines,” he told the Review in 1968. “You can say one thing about the war at one time and the opposite thing about it later and both statements will be true.”??

Forty years later, on Monday, islander and Seabee (U.S. Navy) Bill Adams offered his assessment of the war in Iraq, from which he recently returned.

His speech served as a reminder that several islanders are currently serving, or are set to serve abroad in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere. Adams talked of daily life as a Seabee working in a hostile region, and of friends gained and tragically lost.

Iraq, the steelworker said, is a “surreal place,” with no front lines and military camps that feel generally safe – despite the occasional mortar shower.

“Outside the wires,” he said, “things get real very, very fast.”?

Snipers and IED’s are among the many hazards that soldiers face daily there, Adams said.?

In Fallujah, where he was stationed, Adams met and developed a friendship with an island native who’d grown up with his wife. Others he met didn’t make it home.?

“This is not a popular war,” he said. “It makes it difficult. Thank you for making me feel so appreciated.”?

Despite the ever-present dangers, Adams’ experiences didn’t come without some humor.

He joked that the worst week he and his colleagues had was “when the ice cream truck got blown up.”

Another time, while welding in a dangerous area during torrential downpour, a fellow soldier said he feared lightning more than enemy gunfire.

The lighter times, he said, along with friendships forged, made the trying times endurable. ?

Memorial Day festivities on the island began over the weekend. Legionnaires placed flags at island cemeteries, as they do every year. Monday’s events began with the laying of wreath at the BHS memorial, before an afternoon gathering at the Legion, where the flag was raised to full staff at noon.

Along with revering the fallen, Beck said it’s important to remember all veterans, including those who survived service, but have since passed.

Twelve Legionnaires have passed away since last Memorial Day. ? ? ?

Rev. Dennis Tierney, of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, participated at both the BHS and Legion events. He encouraged people to think often of those who sacrificed their lives for their country.

“In dong so, we connect ourselves to them in a deep and powerful way,” he said. “Remember always. Always, always, always remember.”

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