Celebration at Soldiers & Sailors honors local soldiers

Four years ago, Pitt law student Meredith Odato had her life planned out.

She was going to marry her childhood friend, Jason Frye, a lance corporal in the Marine Corps. Her plans ended when a roadside bomb near Fallujah, Iraq, killed Frye.

On Monday, Memorial Day, 23-year-old Odato marched in place outside the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall as Drill Sgt. Patrick Witcop yelled in her face,

“Lighting struck and down they fell.”

“Lighting struck and down they fell,” Odato and 14-year-old Daryl Blakeley, who marched in place beside her, screamed back.

“’Stead of going to heaven they went straight to hell.”

“’Stead of going to heaven they went straight to hell.”

Odato and Blakeley were competitors in the first Miss Soldiers & Sailors Competition, which occurred during the museum’s annual Memorial Day celebration.

Odato won the 18-25 age group and Blakeley won the 13-17 age group.

Blakeley said she heard about the competition from family members. Odato learned about it when she called the museum to volunteer to help with the celebration.

Each year, Odato said she tries to do something special on Memorial Day to remember Frye.

She joined the Marine Corps shortly after his death, but had to quit when she broke her leg — a disqualifying injury — on a training course.

Odato said she felt “eternally grateful for that brief opportunity to wear that uniform.”

She said serving in the Marine Corps gave her a new appreciation for the nation’s fallen officers. She said she learned that “it is not because they died that we are free. It is because they truly lived.”

The museum’s celebration included a slideshow of hundreds of local men and women who died serving in the armed forces.

There was Army Sgt. Keith A. Bennett, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline. There was Army Staff Sgt. Christopher E. Cutchall, who smiled as he gave a peace sign to the camera. And there was Army Spc. Rodney A. Jones, who wore a black tuxedo with a bow tie almost as wide as his chin — along with hundreds of others.

The slideshow lasted for 15 minutes, each picture staying on the screen for about three seconds. The room was almost silent except for a boy asking his father, “Is a captain better than a sergeant?” and one woman who said, “I can’t watch this.”

Outside, the atmosphere was very different. Flavor Band played music from the 1970s while people munched on hot dogs and couples danced.

Pitt alumnus and Squirrel Hill native Steve Gillis said the music reminded him of his days playing ping-pong in the William Pitt Union. The live music was part of what attracted him to the event. The other was his love for Civil War history, which the museum highlights.

On the opposite side of the patio was Nicholas Viglione, a World War II veteran who was working at the celebration. He has volunteered at the Soldiers & Sailors celebration for the last 40 years.

Viglione fought in southern France as part of General George Patton’s army until he was wounded in January 1945. His brother, Michael, died during the war.

Viglione said he thinks about his brother “quite a bit.” On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, he thinks of hundreds of other soldiers, as well, particularly those who come from Western Pennsylvania.

“They were always tops,” he said. “It was the way they were raised here.”