The ceremony officially began after the Marine Corps League’s Honor Guard presented the colors. Miss Lassen County Katie Anderson then led the crowd of gathered veterans, family members and community members in the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by Julie Newton singing the “Star Spangled Banner.” At the end of the ceremony, American Legion Chaplain Fred Arnold led everyone in a prayer of peace.    

The ceremony consisted of a handful of speeches and proclamations, from both local politicians to state officials. Speeches came from Susanville Mayor Kurt Bonham, District 2 Supervisor Lloyd Keefer, State Assemblyman Dan Logue, and U.S. Congressman Tom McClintock’s Chief of Staff Igor Birman.    

Birman’s speech offered a unique perspective for the community, as a native of the Soviet Union coming to a country of freedom.   

“A little over 15 years ago, my family and I came here from the Soviet Union,” Birman said. “After many decades of trying and my family members losing their lives and their livelihoods in their path to leave dictatorship, we came here. My family was drawn by that beacon of freedom that America is in the world. You ask the question of why my parents and my grandparents risk so much and why did they go through losing everything they had and putting their lives on the line potentially. It’s because of persecution. Putting up with KGB surveillance and writing one special dispensation request after another.   

“It comes down to a very simple principle. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they’re endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is the country that recognizes that those rights are not given by government. They’re not given by a committee, they’re not given by an ideology. They’re given by what the framers referred to as nature and nature’s God. This is the only country in the world that recognizes that.   

“I owe everyone in this room from the bottom of my heart, for the freedom in which I’m able to live instead of the tyranny into which I was born.”   

Logue shared some of his own experiences with veterans as well from how he was able to get together with both a World War II Holocaust survivor and some of the American soldiers who liberated the concentration camps.    

“This nation, ladies and gentlemen, is truly the hope of the world,” Logue said.   

Logue went on to say President Ronald Reagan said it best that when a citizen of the United States goes to another country, even for a long period of time, they are still an American citizen. Yet when somebody from another country comes to live in the U.S., eventually, they become an American.   

Bonham talked about the fact that people need to remember the actions of the veterans from World War II, a generation that gave so much hope to the people of this country.   

“These people did more than just fight a war and win a war,” Bonham said. “They gave us what we have today. They gave us work ethic, and appreciation for what we have. When they came home, they kicked off the dust of the Great Depression, and moved forward. They built businesses, they built opportunity.”   

Bonham then read part of a proclamation from the city: “On this day, let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores to preserve our heritage of freedom. And let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”   

Keefer read a proclamation from the Lassen County Board of Supervisors discussing how with the deeds and the veterans of the First World War becoming but a memory, the world is facing much different dangers these days, dangers that our country can face.   

“Loyal citizens from every corner of America have assumed the duty of military life, from World War I and World War II, to the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf and the ongoing battles in the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military has built a great tradition of courageous and faithful service,” Keefer said.