Today I had the honor of attending the Washington State Veterans Cemetery Forgotten Heroes Interment just outside of Medical Lake. The ceremony is used to provide proper burial for abandoned or unclaimed remains of veterans in the Spokane region.
At today’s ceremony 55 remains were interned at the Washington State Veterans Cemetery. EWU ROTC Cadet Tyler Roylance participated in the ceremony as part of the Washington State Honor Guard.
Cadet Roylance of Post Falls, Idaho is one of the Simultaneous Membership Program (SMP) Cadets enrolled in the EWU ROTC program while also serving in the Washington State National Guard. While conducting monthly guard drill duty an SMP Cadet is paired with and mentored by a National Guard officer. The program also allows Cadets to participate in highly selective National Guard activities such as the Washington State Honor Guard.
After conducting Honor Guard duties Cadet Roylance also participated in helping to intern one of the remains at the cemetery:
More pictures from the Forgotten Heroes Ceremony can be viewed on the EWU ROTC Flickr page. It was a fantastic job by the Washington State Veterans Cemetery, the National Guard, and the local veteran community for putting together such a memorable event to honor these forgotten heroes.
From the archives of Eastern Washington University comes the below image of the The Fighting Eagle Battalion in formation at a parade field back in 1967. Notice how back then the female Cadets wore white dresses and were called a “Sponsor Corps”. We have come a long way as an Army. Does any of our alumni recognize where this parade field was located at in the Cheney area?
Here is an opportunity to learn more about a member of our Eastern Washington University (EWU) ROTC faculty; Assistant Professor of Military Science Captain Nicholas Carbaugh was recently profiled on the Eastern 24/7 website. Captain Carbaugh is a Field Artillery officer that arrived at EWU this summer from Joint Base Lewis-McCord. During this academic year he is the primary instructor for our MS II Cadets. You can read more about Captain Carbaugh by clicking this link.