For metro service members, Memorial Day is a time of reflection for friends, loved ones they lost

ATLANTA — People across the Atlanta metro are honoring our local fallen men and women in the armed services as the county celebrates Memorial Day.

Channel 2′s Bryan Mims was in Roswell Monday morning as that city held a wreath-laying ceremony to honor the holiday.

Mims said Roswell’s city hall was draped with a giant American flag as the ceremony featured the playing of patriotic hymns, punctuated with the 24 mournful notes of Taps.

For veterans in attendance, it brought back memories of their time in the military.

[PHOTOS: Memorial Day celebrated across metro Atlanta and country]

As the band played, a 91-year-old man sat alone in the 12th row. He carried a cane. He wore a hat showing he was a Korean War Veteran.

His name: Norman Board.

“It’s a very solemn day for me,” Board told Mims.

Back in 1950, right out of high school, he joined the Marine Reserves, and he was shipped off to Korea.

Two of his closest buddies from school would go with him and never come home.

“Along with five others from my high school graduating class that had all joined the Marine reserves,” Board said. “I’m always glad when this day is gone because it’s very depressing for me when I think about what they would have been if they had lived.”

For years now, he’s come to Roswell’s Memorial Day ceremony to think of his buddies. To think of all those battle buddies who laid down their lives.

“Stop and take a day to thank those who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” Board said.

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A few rows back, an 81-year-old man sat with his wife. He served in Korea after the war. Monday’s ceremony stirred something inside Jim Galluzzo.

“It’s awesome. It’s indescribable. Patriotism, I feel, is lost, and we got to get back to it -- respecting this country and respecting the American flag,” Galluzzo said.

The guest speaker at the Roswell ceremony was Sunny Park, a Korean war refugee. As a child, he saw American service members in battle.

He would say later, “I saw the American troops -- so brave and strong, and thought they knew no fear.”

In Henry County, people gathered at the Veterans’ Wall of Honor at Heritage Park.

The wall marks every conflict in which American lives were lost while serving our country.

Gary Jarrett Sr. told us he was there to honor his son who was killed in battle.

“He’s my hero as well as all these others and the good Lord needed him more than we did,” Jarrett said.

There were bagpipes, patriotic songs, and a flyover of World War II planes.

People in Norcross remembered our fallen servicemembers with a tribute and ceremony at Thrasher Park.

The city of Dacula held its 30th annual Memorial Day parade. The grand marshals were the fallen heroes of Georgia.

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