Correspondent photo / Sean Barron ... Cecilio Cuevas of Poland proudly holds a law enforcement flag on Market Street before the start of Monday’s 121st annual Boardman Township Memorial Day service in Boardman Park. Accompanying Cuevas is his girlfriend, Joann Burgos of Boardman.

BOARDMAN — Even though Jennifer Baun is proud to have spent five years serving the country, she preferred that the spotlight would cast its light on others who followed the same trajectory.

“I want to reflect on the meaning of Memorial Day, why this day matters, and honoring lives that never made it home. The best way I can do that is to tell you about some others who served,” Baun, a U.S. Navy veteran who served from 1986 to 1991, said.

That theme coursed through the keynote address she delivered for the 121st annual Boardman Township Memorial Day program Monday at Boardman Park’s Maag Outdoor Arts Amphitheater.

Hosting the somber and often emotional one-hour gathering was the Boardman-Youngstown Kiwanis Club.

Baun’s focus was on several people whose dreams and ambitions were cut tragically short when they made the ultimate sacrifice while serving their country. Among those Baun honored was Sharon A. Lane of Zanesville, who pursued becoming a nurse, then worked two years in a hospital before joining the U.S. Army Nurse Corps Reserve on April 18, 1968.

Two months later, Lane graduated from Fort Sam Houston, Texas, then began her duties at a Denver Army hospital, where she worked before reporting 10 months later to Travis Air Force Base in California. Soon after, she was sent to Vietnam to work at the 312th Evacuation Hospital in Chu Lai and soon after, was reassigned to the Vietnamese Ward, where she worked 12-hour shifts five days per week, Baun said.

Lane, who also tended to critically injured American soldiers, was killed when an enemy rocket blew up the ward. She was 25.

Nevertheless, Lane’s selfless actions prevented further fatalities, Baun explained.

“As a result of Lt. Lane’s courageous actions in the face of adversity, total disaster to the ward was prevented and many lives were saved,” she said, adding that Lane was awarded the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for Valor posthumously.

Baun also mentioned Eleanor A. Vietti, who fulfilled her lifelong desire to be a doctor, which led her to perform missionary work and, in 1958, travel to South Vietnam. After returning to that country from the U.S. four years later, 12 Viet Cong guerillas kidnapped Vietti and two others by vehicle, and Vietti was never seen again. In 1991, she was listed as “presumed dead” on a Prisoner of War / Missing in Action list, Baun said.

“It would be this calling that led her to become America’s first female prisoner of war in Vietnam,” she added. “And to this day, Vietti remains the only American woman POW whose fate remains unknown.”

In addition, Baun honored Donald V. Clark, a 1989 Boardman High School graduate who served two years in the Navy, partly as an electrical technician on a submarine, and reached the rank of chief warrant officer.

About 18 months after having received an honorable discharge from the Navy, Clark enlisted in the Army and was assigned in November 2006 to Fort Wainwright, Alaska, and served as an instructor pilot for small scout helicopters.

In July 2008, Clark was deployed to Iraq as part of the 6th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, Task Force 49. He and another soldier were killed Nov. 15, 2008, in Mosul, Iraq, when their Kiowa helicopter crashed while conducting a mission, Baun said.

In September 2016, a 2-mile stretch of Market Street between U.S. Route 224 and Western Reserve Road was renamed the Army Chief Warrant Officer Donald V. Clark Memorial Highway.

Other recognitions for Clark include a Boardman High music scholarship in his name as well as a plaque in the park, Baun continued.

For her part, Baun is a lifetime member of Youngstown-based AMVETS Post 44, and in 2015, she was inducted into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.

Also during the sobering ceremony, Mark Luke of the Boardman-Youngstown Kiwanis Club honored the late Lt. Richard “Rick” Balog, 62, who served 34 years with the Boardman Police Department before his death Aug. 19, 2024, along with Dr. Frederick E. Soller Sr., a longtime dentist who enlisted in the Navy, where he served as Quartermaster on the USS Carter Hall in the Pacific Theater from 1944 until his honorable discharge in 1946.

Soller died Sept. 26, 2024, in Medina. He was 98.

In addition, the hundreds in attendance on an ideal weather day cheered during the armed forces salute portion in which veterans lined up next to a memorial as their service songs were played and, at the end of the program, received handshakes and words of praise for their service.

Also, retired Lt. Col. Bill Moss, a U.S. Air Force veteran, placed a memorial wreath next to a large memorial to honor veterans. Alyson Murray, the Boardman High School National Honor Society president, placed a wreath to honor those currently serving in the military.

Before the service, attendees were treated to a flyover with two F-16 fighter jets.

Preceding Monday’s program was a parade that began at Boardman Center Intermediate School. Among those reveling in the pageantry on Market Street were Cecelio Cuevas of Poland and his girlfriend, Joann Burgos of Boardman.

Burgos expressed gratitude to her son-in-law, Zak Kountz, who has served 12 years in the Army and is in Korea.

“I’m so very proud of him for his service,” she said.