Chuck Parsons was just 22 years old when he graduated college and had to leave behind his new wife as he set off to Fort Benning, Georgia, to attend the  U.S. Army Airborne School — also known as “jump school.”

While other 22-year-olds were finishing college and heading into the work force, Parsons was learning the ropes in the Parachute Infantry, essentially learning how to launch himself out of airplanes. 

Shortly after his training, Parsons found himself serving in the Vietnam War as an advisor to a Vietnamese combat infantry unit doing everything from going on ambushes to providing security. 

Tired and relieved, Parsons arrived back on U.S. soil to reunite with his wife in June 1970. When Parsons left for Vietnam, he held the title of second lieutenant, but when he returned home that summer, he was a first lieutenant.

Fifty-three years later, Parsons proudly wore a Parachutist Badge and an Expert Infantryman Badge at the Memorial Day remembrance ceremony Monday, May 29, at Steamboat Springs Cemetery.

According to the United States Military, “the intent of the Expert Infantry Badge was to provide a drawing card for a tough and thankless job on the battlefield, to add prestige to an otherwise undesirable yet necessary task.” For Memorial Day, Parsons paid tribute to thank those who died in service of their country.

On Monday, he stood among former and active military, Boys and Girls Scouts and community members gathered for Routt County’s 101st Memorial Day Service. The service was well attended, and the Steamboat Springs Transit had to run shuttles from the Stockbridge Transit Center to the cemetery as parking at the cemetery was full.

During the ceremony, 4-year-old Olivia Kiniston made her way through the crowd with her braids tied off by red, white and blue ribbons, and she made sure everyone had a poppy provided by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

A few feet from Parsons at the ceremony stood another Vietnam veteran, former Marine Doc Daughenbaugh.

Also deployed in 1969, Daughenbaugh served with the 1st Marine Division for 15 months before coming home. Another Vietnam veteran present at Monday’s ceremony, Daniel Hevard, also received training at Fort Benning before serving in Vietnam. 

Mike Lozano served as commander of the group of veterans during the Memorial Day ceremony. A veteran of the War in Iraq, Lozano started his career in the Marines in 1991 and remained on active duty until 1995. Lozano served as a combat engineer for the 2nd Marine Division in addition to serving in the Air Force Reserve. 

These days Lozano, the owner of War Horse Ranch, partakes in a different type of service. The ranch is open to veterans, first responders and people who have experienced any sort of trauma to build relationships between horses and humans to work through struggles.

The veterans stood in silence as the names of the 64 Routt County residents who died in conflicts ranging from World War I to the Iraq War were read at the ceremony. Twenty-one of these service members died in World War I, 36 in World War II and four in the Korean War. Two more were killed in action in Vietnam, and one, Mark Lawton, was killed in Iraq.

​​Maureen Hogue sang “America the Beautiful” while the flag at the ceremony was lowered to half-staff, and veterans performed a traditional 21-gun salute and played Taps honoring those who died.

The American Legion Post No. 44 also read the following excerpt from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, as they felt it encapsulates the spirit of Memorial day: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave their last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

The ceremony wrapped up at about noon, as the veterans rolled up the flags and the shuttles begin to bus in to take spectators back to the Stockbridge Transit Center.