MEMORIAL DAY OBSERVED; MONUMENT TO PERRYVILLE ACE UNVEILED

About 250 people gathered in the Osage Community Centre on Memorial Day to remember those who gave their lives for their country, but most seemed to miss something.

Because of the threat of rain, Monday's Memorial Day service was held indoors. There was no Avenue of Flags -- 400 flags lining a quarter-mile of road in Cape Girardeau County Park. Weather permitting, the Avenue of Flags will be on display on the Fourth of July, said Charles Woodford, interim chairman of the Joint Veterans Council in Cape Girardeau.

Still, the crowd came to listen to patriotic music from the Cape Girardeau Municipal Band and singer Julia Cowsert, to watch a color guard present the flag and hear a speech from U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau.

Emerson said she hasn't been "in the trenches" in the military, but did have one experience that taught her the meaning of freedom. When she was a senior in high school, she traveled to the Soviet Union.

"We didn't have any freedom at all," she said. "We had armed guards escorting us. We weren't allowed to talk to anyone on the street ... We weren't allowed outside the hotel unless there was an armed guard with us."

That experience "made me realize in one clarifying moment, that America was a very special place," she said.

She quoted a song by Billy Ray Cyrus about soldiers. "We have to pass on to our children and grandchildren that freedom is not free" because veterans risked their lives fighting for it, Emerson said. "All gave some, and some gave all."

Rick Wieser of Cape Girardeau said he brought his two children to the ceremony "so my kids can recognize the meaning of the day, to recognize the veterans and what they did so we can even enjoy this."

Dr. John Ritter, a retired physician who was an Army doctor in Japan during the Vietnam War, said, "Taking care of the wounded, I saw a lot of really bad things. So I thought I'd pay my respects."

In Perryville, a crowd of about the same size came to watch the dedication of a monument to Capt. Ray Littge, a Perry County man who was the most decorated ace from Missouri in World War II. Threatening weather canceled a planned flyover by Air Force jets.

Littge joined the Army Air Corps right after graduating from Perryville High School in July 1942. In 1944 and 1945, he flew 91 missions in Europe and was credited with destroying 13 enemy airplanes on the ground and shooting 10 1/2 down from the air.

Capt. Littge survived the war, stayed in the Air Corps, was in the Air Force when it was founded, and died in an accident in Oregon in 1949 while flying an Air Force jet.

His brother, Ralph Littge, who lives in Altenburg, was there. He said the granite monument with its engraved likeness of his brother and the P51 Mustang he flew is beautiful.

"When I looked at his likeness, it just seemed to me that I'd like to talk to him," Littge said.

Ralph McLain, who flew with Ray Littge in World War II, came to Perryville from his home in Augusta, Ga., to unveil the monument.

Robert Dillahay, the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Perryville and a Vietnam veteran, said the Perryville veterans groups were glad to dedicate the monument while some World War II veterans are still alive.