Memorial Service Lends Gravity to 500 Festival
About two thousand onlookers attended as Pence, Ballard, and General Daniel B. Allyn—who earlier this month became the 20th commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command—addressed the fallen, surveyed the present, and glanced at the future. “I wonder how many times that scenario has played out—the last hug, the last kiss before heading off to war,” says Mayor Ballard. “Sometimes, though, it really is the last war, the last kiss. And that is why we are here today.”