The City of Palm Coast held its annual Memorial Day Ceremony Monday morning at Heroes Memorial Park, gathering residents, veterans, Gold Star families, public safety personnel, and city officials for a solemn hour of remembrance and tribute.
Mayor Mike Norris hosted the ceremony, which began at 8 a.m. and included the Presentation of Colors by the Matanzas High School JROTC, an invocation by Pastor Charles Silano, and a performance of the National Anthem by Melanie DiMartino.
The Mayor’s Remarks
Mayor Norris opened his address by acknowledging Gold Star families — those who have lost a loved one in military service — along with veterans, active-duty service members, first responders, City Manager Mike McGlothlin, City Council members, and state, federal, and county officials in attendance.
He opened with a quote from the television series Marshall’s, a spinoff of the Yellowstone franchise. A character in a recent episode, a former Navy SEAL, said: “The best of us don’t come home.” Norris said those words “cut right through” him.
“We’re not out here in this May heat for nothing,” Norris told the crowd. “We’re here to remember. To memorialize our fallen comrades, our family, our neighbors. The ones who paid in full.”
Norris then drew on his own family’s long history of military sacrifice, tracing generations of service dating back nearly four centuries.
His family arrived in America in 1631. During the Cherokee War in 1760, his clan lost five members, including women and children. His great-great-great-grandfather, Elkanah Norris, was killed at the Second Battle of Drewry’s Bluff in Virginia during the Civil War in 1864, leaving behind only two sons to carry on the family name.
In World War II, Norris’s great uncle, Dickie Norris, was captured in North Africa in 1943 during the Battle of the Kasserine Pass. After being liberated from a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, his mother was not allowed to see him for more than six months. Norris’s grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Norris, served as a gunner on a U.S. Navy landing craft during General MacArthur’s campaign to retake the Philippines from Japan in 1944. Another great uncle, John Collier Norris, served with the 3rd Ranger Company in Korea and became one of the first members of the early U.S. Army Special Forces.
Norris also honored Lieutenant Ben Colgan, his Officer Candidate School battle buddy, who was killed in Iraq on November 1, 2003, by a white phosphorus IED. Colgan had previously served with the 1st Special Forces Group and 1st Special Forces Detachment — Delta Force before commissioning. He left behind a wife, two daughters, and a third baby girl due that December.
“You’re damn right we remember,” Norris said.
He closed his remarks with a call for the community to carry the memory of the fallen not just in ceremony, but in daily life.
“So today, we say their names. We tell their stories. We carry their memory — not just in speeches, but in how we live. Because if we forget them, then they die twice.”
He ended with: “May God bless our fallen. May God bless their families. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.”
White Rose Tribute and Name Readings
One of the most personal additions to this year’s ceremony was the White Rose Tribute, led by Mayor Norris alongside Vice Mayor Theresa Pontieri and Council Members Ty Miller, David Sullivan, and Charles Gambaro.
Following the tribute, Mayor Norris invited members of the public to come forward and speak the names of their own fallen heroes aloud. Eight community members participated, including Council Members Gambaro and Miller. City Manager Mike McGlothlin also stepped forward to honor two fallen heroes from his own family.
Wreath Presentation, Taps, and Honor Walk
The ceremony also featured the Presentation of Wreaths, led by Mayor Norris, Palm Coast Fire Chief Kyle Berryhill, and Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly, with participation from local veteran organizations and Gold Star families.
The Palm Coast Fire Department Honor Guard Pipe & Drums performed “Amazing Grace.” The Marine Corps League Detachment #876 conducted a 21-Gun Salute, and Tom Maize of the Palm Coast Community Band sounded Taps.
The morning concluded with an Honor Walk through the park, giving attendees a quiet moment to reflect and pay their own tributes to America’s fallen service members.
