The annual Urbanna Military Banner Dedication was conducted Friday, June 21, in the Middlesex Volunteer Fire Department building in Urbanna, where county veterans were recognized for their service to the country.
The program is part of the town’s veteran military banner program where individual veterans are honored with a photo banner that is displayed on the town light posts throughout the year.
Retired Colonel Robert L. Fitch Jr. was the keynote speaker.
Fitch spoke of the history of the volunteer militias and how service to the country has been the cornerstone of its freedom and what has made the United States of America the most significant country in the world.
Three local living World War II veterans were recognized as Marvin “Russ” Russell, Silvio “Tony” Robusto and George C. Sturgill were given special certificates of appreciation.
John “Nugget” Ryland gave the opening prayer and benediction and he spoke of growing up in Urbanna in the late 1940s and into the 1950s when almost every household in town had a veteran of World War I and World War II living there. Even though they had seen and felt the horrors of war, there was a camaraderie that “looked past racial barriers and everything else in that they together had played a part in bringing freedom and quality of life to generations,” he said.
Banner recipients this year include:
- Skip Isham
- Deaugdre Briggs
- Francis L. Hall
- Cornell Kimble
- Shelley Gill
- James (Jimmy) Albert Williams
- Charles H. Brown Sr.
- Joseph Fletcher Russell
- Walter B. Hurley Sr.
- James (Jimmy) W. Rector
- James C. Shackelford
- Frederick A. Wyker Jr.
- Frederick A. Wyker Sr.
- James Wicker
- George C. Sturgill
- Alan H. Vicory
- Floyd W. Jones
- James W. Shackelford
- Charles W. Hackney
- Neil R. Harte
Organizers said they hope the banner program will continue in future years.
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