OXFORD VILLAGE – As they do every year, people of all ages gathered Monday morning in downtown’s Centennial Park and at Ridgelawn Memorial Cemetery to observe Memorial Day with speeches, prayers, music and symbolic gestures.

“Memorial Day is the day that’s set aside to remember with gratitude and pride all those who served and died for our freedom,” said Dave Perry, commander of American Legion Post 108 and a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. “Please make your Memorial Day reflective of those who made it possible.”

Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, a Holly resident who represents Michigan’s 8th District, was this year’s keynote speaker.

Slotkin is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer and former Pentagon official who served three tours in Iraq alongside the military. She told the crowd she “signed up” because of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

“I happened to be in New York City on 9-11 when the towers came down. It totally changed my life,” she said. “Within a year, I was recruited by the CIA to be a Middle East analyst and a year after that, I was sent to Baghdad on my first of three tours.”

Slotkin used her speech as an opportunity to memorialize her “good friend,” Maj. Stu Wolfer, a U.S. Army reservist who was killed in Iraq on April 6, 2008.

“I think one of the things that’s extremely important . . . is to make sure that we keep the memory of those who served and (made) the ultimate sacrifice in our hearts, in our minds (and) on our lips,” she said.

Slotkin said she met Wolfer in Iraq during her third tour.

“Every single Friday night, a bunch of us would go together to the chow hall to have our weekend meal together,” she said.

Wolfer, who lived in Emmett, Idaho, perished in a rocket attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad. He was killed while working out in a gym.

The major, who would have turned 37 a couple weeks later, left behind a wife and three daughters, who were ages 5, 3, and 1 at the time.

Slotkin was pleased to report both the House and Senate recently passed bipartisan legislation to amend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act so the children of servicemen and women killed in combat – often referred to as Gold Star families – will no longer be “heavily” taxed on the survivor’s benefits they receive.

“That was important for us (to do),” she said.

Slotkin told the crowd that getting together and talking about veterans and their service at events like local Memorial Day observances reminds people “of what true leadership means and how to embody that in our own lives.”

“Leadership is something that is sometimes in short supply,” she said.