Flags danced in the wind on Memorial Day and it seemed that flowers were everywhere as North Coast residents and visitors took time out to remember soldiers who gave their lives for their country.

First called Decoration Day, the holiday has its roots in the Civil War when women’s groups began decorating graves with flowers. It became an official holiday in 1868 with a proclamation by Gen. John Logan. In 1900, it was renamed Memorial Day.

Memorial Day was observed on May 30 until 1971, when Congress changed it to the last Monday in May and broadened it to include all soldiers and sailors killed fighting for America.

With the death toll for American soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan now more than 3,400, the holiday has taken on personal meaning for many Americans. Statewide, the death toll for the Iraq War has reached at least 55 and in Washington it has risen to nearly 80. The fighting has claimed the lives of five area residents, four in the military and one civilian contractor.

Brian Browning, a young Astoria soldier who was killed this year fighting in Iraq, and two other military members with local ties were honored during the annual Memorial Day remembrance at Maritime Memorial Park, under the bridge in Uniontown Monday. Some 700 names are engraved on black granite walls at the park, most of them with ties to the river or the sea. All of the names were read aloud at the ceremony, attended by more than 200 people.

In Warrenton, Veterans of Foreign Wars Fort Stevens Post and Auxiliary 10580 sponsored a Memorial Day service at Fort Stevens National Cemetery, and afterwards, the annual flag-changing ceremony at the Warrenton Post Office.

And American Legion Clatsop Post 12 hosted the Clatsop County Memorial Day Remembrance at Ocean View Cemetery in Warrenton. It was chaired by Post 12 Chaplain Ken Rislow.

Among the large crowd attending the Legion service were state Rep. Deborah Boone, D-Cannon Beach, and state Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose. It was the fourth time for Boone, the first for Johnson.

“It was exceptionally moving, very nicely done. A very fitting tribute to the men and women who have died in the service of our country,” Johnson said of the service, during which the names of all Oregonians killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan were read aloud.

“The list is way too long,” she said, calling the loss of those young lives a tragedy.

Johnson said Gov. Ted Kulongoski has attended almost all of the funeral services for those Oregon soldiers, and for each one, he gives a speech individualized to that person.

“Watching him do those services, he’s not there as the governor, he’s there as a father, as a Marine, as an Oregonian. They are some of the most touching services I’ve ever witnessed. When he kneels down to give an Oregon flag, and frequently posthumous awards to the moms, that’s just a former Marine and a dad talking to a grieving family. It’s really remarkable what he’s done to honor the Oregon dead,” Johnson said.

Speaking at the service at Fort Stevens National Cemetery, LeRoy Dunn paid tribute to the five local people killed in Iraq.

“This war has been expensive for this little town of Warrenton,” Dunn, the local VFW’s adjutant quartermaster, told the large audience attending the service.

Dunn was one of several speakers, including Warrenton Mayor Gil Gramson, Warrenton Post 10580 VFW Commander Claude “Mitch” Miller, and Oregon VFW Chaplain Harley Youngblood.

“We mourn the lives lost and celebrate the lives lived,” said Youngblood.

“The willingness to die for their country, truly makes America the home of the brave,” he said. Asserting that “there’s no other nation on earth whose sacrifice has been as great as ours,” Youngblood called the rising war death toll a “testament to the price to achieve freedom throughout the world.”

Highlights of the event included Dunn welcoming home Karl Hellberg, a Warrenton man who has been serving in the military; Warrenton High School student Dacei Gittins singing the national anthem; Warrenton Grade School eighth-grader Alex Carlson, 14, playing Taps; “Amazing Grace” played by a bagpiper with a regiment of Civil War re-enactors: 79th New York Infantry Co. C, the Cameron Highlanders; and the Friends of Old Fort Stevens Cannoneers, C-Battery 2nd U.S. Artillery, a Civil War-era unit under the command of Sgt. Major Jack Bentley, firing several deafening blasts from their Mountain Howitzer cannon.

All in all, a day to remember. And Mitch Miller, the VFW commander, believes that’s the way it should be.

“Sacrifice is meaningless without remembrance,” he said.