Memorial Day is a time for local veterans to reflect

By JOE GORMAN | jgorman@vindy.com

Every day is Memorial Day for Ken Bielik.

The 28-year-old has been a Youngstown police officer since October and served two tours of duty in Afghanistan with the Army.

As a constant reminder of service and sacrifice, he wears a bracelet with the names of three friends from his unit who were killed during his second tour: Nicholas Rozanski, Shawn Hannon and Jeffrey Rieck.

They were killed April 4, 2012, in Faryab Province by an improvised explosive device. They served with Bielik in the 148th Infantry Battalion, 37th Infantry Brigade of the Ohio National Guard.

Their deaths give the holiday a whole new meaning for Bielik.

“It means a lot more to me now,” he said. “Now I have a new sense of it because I was in it.”

“They were good guys,” he continued. “They all had kids.”

Carrying on in a combat zone was not easy after the three died, but he still was able to function because of his routine, Bielik said.

“At first you kind of keep going with what you do every day,” he said, but things changed when a memorial service was conducted for the men, Bielik said.

He said he wears the bracelet because he wants to remember his friends.

“It’s the least I can do,” Bielik said. “When I look down at my hand, they’re always there.”

He said having the bracelet can sometimes be a double-edged sword in terms of the memories it can bring to the surface.

“Sometimes it stirs up bad memories,” Bielik said, but for the most part, the memories are good, he added.

Bielik, 28, a native of Youngstown, joined the Army two years after he started college. He thought he had a duty to serve because of the War on Terror and also wanted to get a head start on a career in law enforcement.

Another veteran of the War on Terror at the police department is Patrolman Travis Kis, 28, a native of Niles, who served in the Army with the 5th Combat Engineer Battalion in 2005-06. His unit patrolled roads in convoys for eight to 12 hours a day looking for roadside bombs.

Once, a bomb detonated under the vehicle in which he was riding, but he was not injured, Kis said. He said Memorial Days are strange for him because usually he was on duty all the time during the holiday when he was in the service. He left the Army in 2011.

He said he thinks of not just the people with whom he served but the places he served. He also was in Korea, and seeing the hardships people faced makes him value America more, he said.

“You appreciate this country a lot more,” Kis said.

For retired Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Lynn Griffith of Warren, it’s an example by a fellow submariner that he remembers the most on Memorial Day.

Griffith had joined the Navy at the end of World War II and qualified for submarine duty, which he decided to try for a number of reasons — one of them being his girlfriend lived in the same port where the submarine school was. Plus, the pay was way better.

After being assigned to the USS Sea Devil, Griffith served with a chief master petty officer who was under water with his crew when his submarine, the USS Squalus, became disabled for several days in the Atlantic Ocean and was stranded on the bottom in 1939. Griffith said the crew managed to be rescued, but out of 58 crewmen, 26 perished. The chief left in the last rescue bell, along with the captain.

Griffith said that when he asked the chief why he stayed, his answer was simple: There were others in worse shape than he was and they needed to be rescued first. He said that spirit of sacrifice is what epitomizes the holiday for him.

Griffith holds court every morning for an hour with a host of others, including several veterans, over coffee at the Starbucks on state Route 46 in Howland. One of those vets is Jerry Rogers of Warren, who served two tours in Vietnam with the Marines in 1965-66 and 1967-68.

He said the holiday is an easier one for him over the years as attitudes about the hugely controversial war in which he served have changed.

“I think time changes everybody’s opinion,” said Rogers, who is retired after working 37 years at Packard Electric. He said that while he remembers people he served with almost daily, he said other memories are not ones he dwells on often.

“I think it’s something you block out of your mind because of the grossness of it,” Rogers said.

He said visiting the Vietnam Memorial helps him with his memories of the war.

“It’s really interesting,” he said of the memorial.

Ron Heames of Howland is a World War II veteran who served with the 104th Infantry Division in World War II and saw action on several fronts in Europe, including France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. His unit also met the Russians at the Elbe River near the end of the war.

He said the day is not just to remember those who died for their country, but also those who were wounded.

He said he remembers in his own way and does not take part in any Memorial Day observances.

Dennis Muntean of Boardman is an Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm with the 3rd Infantry Division and Bosnia with the 1st Infantry Division as a crew chief on a Blackhawk helicopter. Today, he said he sees daily reminders of what sacrifice is all about at his job at the veterans hospital in Butler, Pa, where he is a nurse. He treats veterans from all wars who have lost limbs in combat.

“It’s the personal stories and sacrifice that make Memorial Day what it is,” Muntean said.