Chappaqua Memorial Day 2007: Staff Sgt Kyu Hyuk Chay

My wife and I went to the Memorial Day parade and observance earlier today in our town of Chappaqua, New York. We have gone to many of them these past few years, and somehow it seemed important that we be there today. Our children had participated in many of the parades in years past, but they are on their own now so we went just for the memorial ceremony.

As we approached the site I saw a lot of people with cameras taking pictures. I then noticed President Clinton was standing about ten feet away. It was the first time I had seen him at the ceremony, though I’ve seen them around town from time to time since they moved here in 1999. I heard Senator Hillary Clinton speak at the Memorial Day ceremony two years ago. I soon learned that she was also there, as was our representative in the U.S. Congress, Nita Lowey.

I looked at the town memorial and saw a photograph attached to it. I realized this would be a Memorial Day like none our town had seen in over thirty years — a new name was being added to the memorial. This day was not about President Clinton, or Senator Clinton, or Congresswoman Lowey. It was about Staff Sgt. Kyu Hyuk Chay.

I first learned about Sgt. Chay one day late last fall when I walked by the dry cleaners near the Starbucks downtown and saw a newspaper article in the window about the death of Sgt. Chay due to a bomb that exploded while he was on combat patrol in Afghanistan in late October. His parents were the owners of the store. He was survived by them, a brother, his wife and two young children, as described in Chappaqua Soldier Killed In Afghanistan. The picture of him in uniform in the story is the same picture I saw on the memorial.

I stopped by the store a couple of times to offer my condolences, but his parents weren’t there when I did, and I must confess that I had forgotten about Sgt. Chay until I saw his picture on the memorial today.

Memorial Day in our town is like that in most towns. We have a small parade with the fire department, the ambulance corps, boy and girl scouts, athletic teams, marching bands, and various groups and we have our own rituals. New in Chappaqua this year was a group of volunteers dressed in the military dress of the Revolutionary War. The local Girl Scout troop continued a tradition they started a couple of years back of collecting and reading biographies of some of our veterans, including some of the those honored on our memorial.

Major Robert Coloumbe of the 105th Air Support Group of the NY National Guard knew Stg. Chay and spoke of him. He said he first met Chay when Chay was working behind the counter of his parent’s store back in his high school days. Stg. Chay expressed an intererest in public service, and Major Coloumbe advised him. At one point Sgt. Chay thought of doing police work, but his interest turned to the military. Sgt. Chay was a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany and attended law school. Major Coloumbe suggested to Sgt. Chay that he could go to Officer’s Candidate School and then join the Judge Advocate General’s Office, the legal arm of the military. He learned later that Sgt. Chay had considered this but had decided that he needed to serve as an enlisted soldier before he could become an officer, as he had to understand the men he would be asked to lead before he could lead them.

Sgt. Chay enlisted in the U. S. Army, only a few credits short of finishing law school. Major Coloumbe detailed how Sgt. Chay then volunteered and qualified as a paratrooper, and later became a member of the Special Forces, the Army’s most elite unit. Sgt. Chay was also a gifted linguist and was fluent in Arabic. The Major’s remarks were very touching and very personal. He was quite eloquent. You can read more about him and some of the others at the parade, including Jim McCauley, a Vietnam vet who led the ceremony. in Name of soldier killed in Afghanistan added to New Castle war memorial. Sgt. Chay’s brother, Kue Tay Chay, spoke of his brother and thanked the town on the family’s behalf.

The ceremony ended with the unveiling of Sgt. Chay’s name on the memorial, followed by a 21-gun salute, a closing prayer by Deacon Devlin. I spoke with Deacon Devlin after the cermony, to ask after one of his children who was a classmate of one of my children and also to ask after his daughter Katie, who is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and was at the ceremony two years ago, just days before she was to leave for duty in Afghanistan. (I learned she returned safely and is now on duty in Colorado.) Deacon Devlin chose as the closing words of his prayer words we have all heard many times, although not usually as a prayer. Here they are:

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 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 gave the 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 government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Ours is a simple memorial, a stone column about eight feet tall topped with a figure of an eagle. It stands just in front of the train station. Many town residents commute to work in New York City each day. About a thousand of those residents were at the ceremony today, and I know that from today on some of them will think of Sgt. Chay as they pass the memorial in the morning after getting a cup of coffee at the “Dunkin D.” His name can be found on the side that faces the direction the morning commuters are headed. They are going south.

View of the Chappaqua War Memorial facing south. SSgt. Chay’s name is on the far side, facing south. South towards New York City, south towards where the Twin Towers once stood, south towards the reason he was in Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Kyu Hyuk Chay — May His Memory Be a Blessing.

[Written by Dave Shields in May 2007 and first published in his blog, The Wayward Word Press.]

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