New York National Guard headquarters marks Memorial Day with a late morning ceremony on Thursday, May 21

Media Advisory

Latham, NY (05/20/2026) — National Guard Soldiers and Airmen and civilians who work at New York National Guard headquarters in Latham will hold a Memorial Day ceremony on Thursday, May 21.

Members of the press are invited to cover the brief ceremony.

WHO: Major General Gary Charlton II, the commander of the New York Air National Guard, a military color guard, and Soldiers, Airmen and federal and state civilian employees of the Department of Military and Naval Affairs.

WHAT: A short Memorial Day Ceremony. Charlton will deliver remarks. There will be a wreath presentation and the names of New York National Guard personnel who have passed away during the past year will be read. Taps will be played.

The ceremony will be outside by the memorial to the fallen outside the headquarters. In case of poor weather, the event will be inside on the drill hall floor.

WHEN: 11 a.m., Thursday, May 21, 2026.

WHERE: New York National Guard Headquarters, 330 Old Niskayuna Road, Latham, New York.

COVERAGE OPPORTUNITIES:

Video and still imagery of the uniformed color guard and the bugler playing taps as well as the wreath laying ceremony. There will be an opportunity to interview Charlton and other attendees.

NOTE: The event will begin promptly at 11 a.m. and will be no longer than 15-20 minutes.

Members of the media must contact the Division of Military and Naval Affairs Public Affairs Office at 518-786-4581 for access to this secure military facility prior to 10 a.m. on May 21.

BACKGROUND:

Memorial Day traces its history back to the traumatic events of the Civil War when 624,511 Soldiers on both sides died between 1861 and 1865. Families on both sides of the conflict wanted to remember those who had died.

The first Memorial Day celebration in the northern states took place in Waterloo, New York, on April 5, 1866, to mark the year since the end of the Civil War. These events were initially known as Decoration Day.

On that day, the village was decorated with flags at half-mast, evergreen branches -representing eternal life in the 19th century- and black ribbons to mourn for the dead. General John B. Murray. Murray, a local Civil War hero, led a procession to the village cemeteries where flowers were placed on the graves of those who had died in the fighting.

The village did it again in 1867. By 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic, the equivalent of the American Legion for Union War veterans, was urging a National Day of Remembrance on May 30, and the village, along with other New York communities, shifted its date to May 30.

In the south, a group of formerly enslaved people held a Memorial Day event in May of 1865, just a month after the war's end, marking the graves of Union Soldiers who died in battles around Charleston, South Carolina.

Other events were held across the south in communities to mark the graves of Confederate war dead as well.

Since then, the day's meaning has expanded to one of commemorating all those who have given their lives in defense of the

United States. Since 1971, the day has been officially commemorated on Monday following the last weekend in May.

Between the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the end of combat operations in Afghanistan, 39 New York Army and Air National Guard Soldiers and Airmen -7 Airmen and 32 Soldiers- lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror.

The most recent Global War on Terror casualties occurred in 2018, when an HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopter flown by the New York Air National Guard's 106th Rescue Wing based at Westhampton Beach, New York, crashed in Iraq. Four members of the wing were killed.

On March 6, 2026, New York Army National Guard Major Sorffly Davius, a member of the 42nd Infantry Division headquarters, died while on duty in Kuwait due to a medical emergency. At the time the division was conducting operations in support of Operation Epic Fury, the conflict with Iran.

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