From left, Nick Glenski, Berry Benedick, Jack Adderley and Damian Butner of the Marshall Civil Air Patrol present the colors during a Memorial Day service on the grounds of Saline County Courthouse, Monday, May 26. (Kathy Fairchild/Democrat News) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

Floyd Case of Marshall was already at an induction center in Kansas City, ready to enlist in the Army Air Corps during World War II, when he received an emergency phone call that his father had died.

He returned to his Slater home, and in the early years of the war, he stayed home, the sole support of his mother and siblings. He finished high school, working all day and doing his homework at night, and eventually enlisted in the Navy in 1944.

Aboard the light cruiser U.S.S. Birmingham, he and his shipmates helped prepare the way for the eventual dropping of the world's first atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Case said it was his role in that event that changed his life.

"I helped kill more people at one time than had ever been done before," he said.

Upon his return to the U.S. in 1946, although he'd trained to be a carpenter, Case entered the ministry.

"My call was personal," he said, "but it was social, too. I learned that more ministers were being buried than ordained, and so I redirected my life."

Civil Air Patrol cadets, from left, Nick Glenski and Berry Benedick observe a moment of silence during Memorial Day services in Marshall, May 26. (Kathy Fairchild/Democrat News) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

In his remarks at Marshall's Memorial Day service, Monday, May 26, Case recounted his ministerial life with Salter's First Christian Church and his years of service with Marshall Habilitation Center. The cap he doffed to offer a prayer had belonged to his late father, a World War I Navy veteran.

Keynote speaker Colonel David Van Horn, Chaplain of Saline County Composite Squadron of the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol, spoke of Memorial Day as "a quiet holiday."

"(It's) not as wild as Christmas," he said. "Memorial Day calls us to remember those who have gone on … but also to remember those in place now, with families stretched apart … and to become better neighbors and friends."

Elaine Osborne, representing the Daughters of the American Revolution, read portions of "Bivouac of the Dead," written by Theodore O'Hara as a tribute to Kentucky soldiers who died in the Mexican-American War of 1847.

"Nor shall your glory be forgot / While Fame her record keeps, / For honor points the hallowed spot / Where valor proudly sleeps," she read.

"I find these portions of the poem very calming, said Osborn, who also placed a wreath at the Veteran's Memorial on the courthouse square during the ceremony.

The short program concluded with taps played by CAP Cadet Brandon Bingaman of Slater.

Floyd Case of Marshall, a World War II Navy veteran and retired chaplain, wore his father's World War I Navy cap to the Memorial Day service, Monday, May 26, in Marshall. (Kathy Fairchild/Democrat News) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

Contact Kathy Fairchild at marshallhealth@socket.net