By Joseph Deinlein
The Daily Item
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SUNBURY — Cody Kremser said the easiest part of the Boy Scout oath to live up to is the part about helping other people at all times.
“I’m always there for my friends and family,” said the 15-year-old Sunbury resident and Boy Scout.
He and about 10 other Scouts were in Sunbury’s Cameron Park on Sunday during a rededication ceremony for a monument to those Scouts who gave their lives for their country.
The monument, a bronze plaque inscribed with the Boy Scout oath, mounted to a stone, had been in the park since 1971. With the park’s redesign over the past year, the monument was removed temporarily, then reinstalled in a garden behind the gazebo.
Fred Whipple Jr., the unit commander for the Sunbury Boy Scouts, said the monument had been lost among trees and a garden before the redesign.
“I’m pleased with where they put it,” he said.
Joshua Adams, a 12-year-old Scout from Northumberland, agreed.
“I think it’s really important,” he said of the monument. “It had been buried for I don’t know how many years. It was just forgotten.”
The short ceremony included a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, the recitation of the Cub Scout and Boy Scout oaths and Boy Scout Law.
Then several Scouts placed flags and placards donated by the Veterans Administration depicting each U.S. conflict in which Scouts were known to have served and died. That starts with World War I and includes every major engagement including the war on terrorism.
In Cody’s opinion, it is doing duty to “my God and my country” that is probably the hardest to live up to. In fact, the rededication ceremony was meant to honor his fellow Scouts who did just that.
“There are a lot of people who are not willing to go into the service,” he said. “It’s not an easy task.”
