Iwo Jima memorial dedication to be held June 6

By Anna Noel

Yorktown News-View

A ceremony dedicating and blessing the recently constructed Iwo Jima memorial in Yorktown will be held on Monday, June 6, at 6 p.m. at the DeWitt County Veteran’s Center.

“We initially were going to do it on the same day we do the Memorial Day ceremony,” Hank Chinnery, president of Yorktown’s Vietnam Veterans of America chapter stated, “but the thing about it is Memorial Day is so busy, we have so much groundwork to do with the chairs and keeping people cool, everything that goes on. So, we were looking for a good day to do that, and June 6 is D-Day, so we picked D-Day to dedicate this thing. 

“What we’ll do is, we’re going to invite the family, we’ll have a podium out there with a sound system. We’re not going to put up chairs and a tent and all that stuff because it’s just too much effort, and we don’t think the ceremony’s going to be near as long as the Memorial Day ceremony. We’re trying to keep it fairly short because of the heat. There will be a welcome and opening remarks by myself as the president of the Vietnam Veterans, and then I’ve asked Donna [Roeder with KYB] to say a few words because they’ve been a very integral part of putting this thing together."

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