On Memorial Day, helicopters of the Georgia Army National Guard will fly over north and south Georgia in honor of our fallen and to remind us all of the debt we owe for the high price that has been paid for our liberty. One flight will take off from Clay National Guard Center and the other will take off from Hunter Army Airfield.
The southern flight route will start at Hunter Army Air Field and pass over Tybee Island and Bonaventure Cemetery before turning west to fly over the Glennville Veterans Memorial Cemetery and Albany before returning to Savannah.
Below are the flyover locations and times (local).
Memorial Hospital/0957
Bonaventure Cemetery/1000
Tybee Island/1008
River Street/1018
St. Josephs/1022
Glennville Veteran Memorial/1042
“We will pause for a few moments this day to recognize the sacrifice of our service members and our families,” said Maj. Gen. Tom Carden, Adjutant General of the Georgia Department of Defense. “It is part of our culture to remember and to honor, and it is going to take more than a global pandemic to change that part of us.”
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
While many people see Memorial Dayas some sort of military-related day that gives them a 3-day weekend — and special deals on cars and mattresses — there is a specific reason for the day.
• Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country’s armed forces.
• The first official observance of Memorial Day was on May 30 in 1868.
• Ordered by General John Logan, flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.
• From the Revolutionary War through the first Gulf War, some 651,000 U.S. service personnel died in combat, a total that includes around 75,000 Confederates. Nearly half of all these deaths occurred in World War II — over 290,000.