Instead of using this Memorial Day just to honor veterans, a group is also trying to fight the stigma of mental illness, which affects many veterans.
The Athens branch of NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, will put on its annual Memorial Day on The Ridges this Monday.
The overall purpose is to remember the dead and to fight stigma against mental illness
said Tom Walker, chairman of the Ridges Cemetery Project and a professor of political science at Ohio University.
The event will consist of a eulogy being read, decoration of two graves, and the Sweet Adelines singing. A color guard/rifle squad from the Athens VFW, a squad from Ohio University's AFROTC, Ohio Department of Mental Health Director Sandra Stephenson, and Ohio first lady Frances Strickland will all be in attendance this year.
Walker said he is very excited for this year's event.
(This is the) first year we are having the eulogy done by a Vietnam veteran. He is an interesting man; he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and that turned his life around so he can speak from his heart to the other vets at the cemetery
said Walker.
The veteran speaking this year, Jim McGarrity, has been dealing with his Vietnam experience for 40 years and has even wrote a book on it, Checkpoint One-Four.
It is a great privilege and a great honor to be asked to speak on behalf of them
McGarrity said.
The two graves that will be decorated at the ceremony will be Viola Rapp, a former Ridges patient, and a civil war veteran who fought with William Tecumseh Sherman's Army.
The ceremony will be at 1 p.m. this Monday at the Ridges, Cemetery two, at the top of Dairy Barn Hill.
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Culture
Alisa Caton
