‘I remember every moment of it as if it was yesterday’: Virginians honor fallen heroes at Memorial Day service

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- On Monday, May 26, the Virginia War Memorial hosted the 69th Commonwealth's Memorial Day service and the inaugural "Say Their Names" marathon -- where volunteers read the names of 12,000 Virginians killed in combat since World War II.

8News met Neal Thompson outside the Virginia War Memorial's Shrine of Memory. He came by to pay respects to his fallen cousin who died making the ultimate sacrifice.

"I remember every moment of it as if it was yesterday," Thompson said. "That's why it's so hard to come here."

Thompson said his cousin was the brightest, most sensitive of the family's three children. With a drive to serve so strong, he enlisted without his father's permission, trained and went to Vietnam.

"He was killed the second week there," Thompson said. "It was a terrible tragedy to the family, which they never fully recovered from."

It's lasting legacies like his that Thompson and Liz Bagley continue to honor every single day. Because, to Bagley, every day is Memorial Day. The Richmond woman was wearing a pin in the shape of an angel wearing an American Flag dress.

"I wear it every chance I get," Bagley said.

She said it's a reminder of constant reverence and gratitude for those who served -- including her uncle and one of her former classmates.

"This place... you have a feeling here… don't you feel it?" she asked Thompson while looking around the Virginia War Memorial and the Shrine of Memory. "You really have a feeling when you come here. It's very reverent."

She expressed her eternal gratitude for the individuals who sacrificed their lives for our country.

"It's hard," she began. "It's hard to talk about them. I just admire every single one of them."

Thompson said it's difficult to attend the War Memorial's formal ceremony, because it brings about heavy emotion and seemingly endless tears. He and Bagley visited the memorial afterwards to pay their respects.

Governor Glenn Youngkin was one of many attendees at the 69th Commonwealth's Memorial Day service. The crowd, filled with people of all ages and backgrounds, rang out with applause, tears and heavy moments of respect throughout the event.

"We stand with you to express our collective grief and to show our overwhelming gratitude for all that your loved ones did to defend liberty and to defend freedom," Youngkin said.

Since World War II, around 12,000 Virginians were killed in past combat. Now, strangers and loved ones, people from Richmond and even beyond, all joined in one place to say their names.

"The debt we have for them is... it's incalculable," Thompson said. "You cannot possibly appreciate the sacrifices [enough] that were seen in part here today."

The Commonwealth's first ever “Say Their Names” marathon kicked off right after the ceremony and is expected to go past midnight.