Space Coast prepares for busy Memorial Day observances

BY MARIA SONNENBERG

The COVID significantly hobbled Brevard’s Memorial Day observances, but that is in the past as the county gears up for a slate of activities that surpass pre-pandemic levels.

“This is the biggest number of Memorial Day events I have seen in 10 years,” said Donn Weaver of the Veterans Memorial Center in Merritt Island.

Memorial Day was created to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom. “Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said.

Well before the designated holiday, Brevard will be honoring heroes, with Friday, May 26, officially beginning observances with the Ride for Freedom and Flame of Honor Ceremony at the Veterans Memorial Center Plaza at 5 p.m. It is the first day of the three-day Rolling Thunder Florida, a massive motorcycle rally that takes off at 4 p.m. from Fishlips at Port Canaveral and ends at the Veterans Center, where the Global War on Terror Moving Walls will be on display and where the Gold Star Family and MIA/POW Remembrance Torch March is scheduled at the Memorial Plaza.

From 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on May 27, Space Coast Harley Davidson in Titusville will host the Ride for

Freedom Festival. Sponsored by all seven Rolling Thunder chapters in Florida, the event features food, drinks, music and more.

One of the biggest motorcycle events in the state is slated for the third day, when the Motorcycle Ride for Freedom kicks off from the Merritt Square parking lot adjacent to the Veterans Center at 10 a.m.

“We’re expecting 2,000 motorcycles for the 15 to 17 mile route,” Weaver said.

Weaver will have a busy day on Memorial Day, given that he plans to attend three major events that day, beginning with the 9:30 a.m.

Memorial Day Remembrance at the Veterans Center. Retired Lt. Col. Tim Thomas, who helped retrieve the remains of American soldiers lost in Korea and Vietnam, is among the guest speakers.

At 11 a.m., Cape Canaveral National Cemetery in Scottsmoor will host a Memorial Day ceremony that includes a folded flag ceremony by the Marine Corps League.

Riverfront Park in Cocoa Village rounds out major events that day with a short parade and ceremony at 4 p.m.

Palm Bay, Melbourne and Titusville are also hosting Memorial Day events, as are several cemeteries, continuing a tradition that began May 5, 1866, in Waterloo, New York, when the community gathered May 5 to honor the dead of the Civil War.

Two years later, General John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic proclaimed May 30 as the day to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers. After World War I, the holiday expanded to honor all those who had died in all American wars. It was not until 1971 that the day was declared a national holiday.

For more details, visit veteransmemorialcenter.org or call 321-453-1776. SL