CAMBRIDGE — Marine veteran and Dorchester County Council Vice President Mike Detmer has a vivid memory of a small moment that occurred while he was serving in Fallujah, Iraq in the early 2000s.
Detmer was sitting on his rack, or bed, when he saw his friend and platoon mate Brad Arms enter the room shared by lance corporals and private first class Marines. Arms had just arrived back from patrolling with the infantry outside the city for multiple days. On these patrols, you could forget about hot water, phones and internet. There were no “creature comforts,” as Detmer put it.
“It was a dirty and miserable place,” he said. “And that was not considering the danger that was connected to it.”
Detmer watched Arms enter the room that day and look toward the large and overflowing plywood trashcan.
“That trashcan would get heaped up,” Detmer said. “And it would usually take a sergeant or an angry corporal coming in there and fussing at somebody to take it out and put it in the trashcan outside.”
Detmer can remember Arms, who had just returned from that “dirty and miserable” patrol rotation, setting his things down and going over to take out the trash; assuming responsibility for something he hadn’t contributed to.
“Not one piece of that trash in that trashcan came from Brad Arms,” Detmer said. “Brad Arms was out in hardship and danger that whole time that trashcan had filled up.”
Arms, who was later killed while serving in Iraq, was one of the five fallen heroes that Detmer spoke about at a Memorial Day service hosted by American Legion Post 91 in Cambridge on Monday, May 27. Detmer also spoke about two other friends, Andy Aviles and Jesse Strong, and two Dorchester natives, Cecil “Butch” Jenkins from Taylors Island and Adam Mooney from Cambridge.
In sharing each of their stories, Detmer pointed out the similarities of the five men. They were bright and well-regarded in their communities. “The cream of the crop,” he said.
And, as illustrated in Detmer’s story about Arms, these men were not selfish.
“They were also people who I don’t believe — even knowing (the) price that they were eventually called to pay — I don’t think they would have shirked [that duty],” he said.
At the American Legion on Memorial Day, prayer and song were a part of the service dedicated to those who gave their lives serving in the military. Former state senator and Post 91 Historian Richard Colburn told attendees they could “certainly” grill hotdogs and crack open a beer in the afternoon.
“But to honor those that gave us supreme sacrifice is the most important thing we can do on Memorial Day,” he said.
At the service, Dorchester County Orphans Court Judge Rev. George Ames gave an invocation, the City of Cambridge Color Guard presented arms, Amy Bennett sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America,” Sheila Hickman read the poem, “In Flanders Fields,” Cole Kesselring played the bagpipes and Pastor Steve Bloodsworth gave a benediction.
At noon, the firing of a cannon indicated the American flag had been raised from half-mast, in honor of Memorial Day, and “Taps” was played.
In his speech, Detmer said it is important to honor and memorialize fallen heroes through holding these events, creating physical monuments dedicated to them and telling their stories.
“Understand(ing) that these sons and daughters of these families, they were our friends and neighbors too,” he said.
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