Former Army Chaplain to serve as keynote speaker for Tioga County’s Memorial Day service

Owego’s Memorial Day keynote speaker, former Army Chaplain and Bronze Star Recipient Patrick Van Durmie, will focus on his role as a Battalion Chaplain to combat troops throughout war torn Northern Iraq on Memorial Day, May 30, and at the Courthouse Square in Owego. He’ll also share an experience in an ancient Iraq monastery.  

Patrick is from Dansville, the youngest of ten from a good Irish Catholic family. 

He enlisted in the Army Reserves in 1984. He received degrees from Ithaca College and the Catholic University of Levin in Belgium. He was at the airport preparing for a flight home on Sept. 11, 2001. Like others, he was shocked to see on TV the first plane crash into the World Trade Tower. His flight to Owego was delayed weeks.   

Patrick was ordained a Roman Catholic Priest for the Diocese of Rochester in 2000. He came to St. Patrick’s-Owego and Blessed Trinity as his first assignment from 2001-2003. 

He reenlisted in the Army as a commissioned Captain Chaplain in 2008. He served at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Ga., as the only Roman Catholic Chaplain and as Battalion Chaplain with 3-17 Attack. 

Patrick was deployed to Iraq in 2009 with 1-9 Field Artillery, 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Stewart, Georgia. He served during Operation Iraq Freedom and Operation New Dawn. He received the Bronze Star, the nation’s fourth highest honor, among other citations for service to USA-Northern Operations. 

In 2010 Chaplain Van Durmie celebrated for 300 soldiers the Easter Vigil Mass in Dair Mr Elia, or in English, Saint Elijah’s Monastery, the oldest in Iraq, dating from the 6th century, in Ninawa Governorate, just south of Mosul in Northern Iraq.

Patrick learned he was the last priest to say Mass within the monastery founded about 595AD. ISIS (acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) destroyed the historic monastery some time before August 2014. This was a location where Christians prayed, lived and celebrated for over 1,400 years and now it has been leveled. 

Patrick moved to Fort Hood in Texas and served with the Garrison Command. Also served with the 3rd ID Emergency Operations Command under the current head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. 

Patrick medically retired from Active Duty in 2014 after being injured in Mosul, Iraq. He also left the Catholic priesthood. 

Since retirement he has been building furniture and other woodworking projects. 

Currently Patrick is a student at the Education Doctoral Executive Leadership Program at St. John Fisher College. He’ll complete this degree program in early 2023.  

The May 30 service will begin with a parade line up by the Police Station on Temple Street between 9:30 a.m. and 9:55 a.m. for the precise 10 a.m. start time. The parade will travel from Temple to North to Main, and then to Paige, Front, and onto the south side of the Courthouse Square for the Memorial Service.

There will be an overview of the 35th Service of Remembrance at the Tioga County Veterans Memorial, and 56th for Master of Ceremonies Jim Raftis. The Daughters of the American Revolution will lay a wreath at the Tioga County Civil War Union Memorial, Troop 60 Boy Scouts will read the names of Fallen Heroes, and the Owego Elementary students will add a flag for each Fallen Hero to two patriotic baskets.

Purple Heart and Valor Honor Recipients and Gold Star Families are invited to lay wreaths at the memorials. The Invocation, and later the Benediction, will be led by Deacon Michael Donovan.

The OFA Marching Band will be there, as will as the Keynote Speaker. 

Tioga County’s Veterans Service Agency Director Michael Middaugh will outline the services of his agency to veterans.

There will be a roll call, and Mayor Mike Baratta will present a proclamation, Vietnam Veteran Chet Harding for 40 years of dedicated service to veterans. A Navy Veteran will cast a wreath into the Susquehanna River, and will serve as a remembrance as well of Owego’s first WWII Casualty, Seaman Delmar Sibley aboard the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor since Dec. 7, 1941

The VFW Post 1371 will render a Rifle Salute, and Honor Guard Bugler Steve Palinosky will play Taps.

Glenn A. Warner Honor Guard and Auxiliary always honor two graves before marching in the parade. This year they’ll be in Tioga Cemetery to remember 27-year Auxiliary Member Joyce Lurcock and WWII Air Force POW and past VFW Post 1371 Commander Ralph Meza. POWs and MIAs are always remembered at the park ceremony.  

Parade Chairman Loftus says with total community involvement he’d love to have the 2022 parade the best and largest and most educational for the children. 

Remember Operation Pass the Torch at 3 p.m. Memorial Day. Reclaim Memorial Day for the noble and sacred reason for which it was intended – to honor those who died in the service to our Nation. Americans of every age are invited to participate. One may pause for a moment wherever they happen to be, whether alone or with others.

What’s missing? Share more ways to honor our Fallen Heroes. Email VFW Post 1371 Memorial Day Chairman Jim Raftis at jraftis2@stnr.rr.com. 

And here is the answer to a question. How far down the Susquehanna River does the Navy Memorial Wreath float? Recover it if possible. Secure the found wreath to the railing on the west side of the Court Street Bridge. An Owego first!