Memorial Day began early for soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 107th Field Artillery regiment, who returned home in February after spending a year in Iraq.

	John Heller, Post-Gazette Pfc. John Conticelli from the 229th Field Artillery Delta Battery D from Grove City, checks the dog tags of Pennsylvania soldiers killed in Irag or earlier conflicts hanging from flags lining the entrance to the Mercer Citizens cemetery on Route 19 in Mercer. Click photo for larger image. Related articles Memorial Day events Memorial site for fallen soldiers

Two soldiers from the unit -- Spcs. Carl Curran, 22, of Brady's Bend and Mark Kasecky, 20, of Stowe -- drowned on the outskirts of Fallujah on May 17, 2004, after a roadside bomb exploded near their Humvee, causing it to crash down an embankment and overturn in a canal.

On the anniversary of their deaths, soldiers from the battalion decorated the sites of their graves and spoke words in their honor.

And this weekend, about half of the 650 soldiers from the Pennsylvania Army National Guard unit will be taking part in Memorial Day observances, marching in parades and making speeches.

Their experiences in Iraq have made the holiday especially meaningful to them, many of the 107th soldiers said.

"You come out with a sense of the tremendous sacrifices it took to create America and to keep her free," said Lt. James Wilson, 33, of Penn Hills, who will be the keynote speaker tomorrow at the Memorial Day observance in Penn Hills.

Wilson served as a platoon commander in B Battery which, with Service Battery, is based at the Hunt Armory in Shadyside. His platoon served as guards at the prison at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. The battalion is headquartered in New Castle.

Other soldiers from B Battery and Service Battery will be taking part in Memorial Day observances in Tarentum, Springdale, Shaler and Irwin.

Soldiers from Batteries A and D will be taking part in festivities in Mercer, Sharon and Hermitage. Soldiers from Battery C will be doing the same in Oil City and Franklin. Battery A is based in Hermitage, Battery C in Oil City, and Battery D in Grove City.

The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Grey Berrier, 41, of Pulaski, was the keynote speaker at the Memorial Day observance yesterday in Ellwood City.

"We have never fought a conflict against another democracy," Berrier said. "We have fought against kings and tyrants, dictatorships and communist regimes. We're fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq so that those people can some day have the freedoms we enjoy."

His soldiers were the first National Guard artillerymen to serve as military police in Iraq, and they did an outstanding job, Berrier said.

"They had adults come up to them in tears, giving them hugs, shaking their hands and telling them: 'because of you Americans, our children will enjoy freedoms and liberties we never had under Saddam Hussein,' " he said.

Wilson said he and the others volunteered for Memorial Day duty because "we didn't want to come back and just be mundane National Guardsmen. We knew we were part of something important."

Cpls. Frank Yoho, 33, of Koppel, and Michael Assalone, 36, of Ellwood City, accompanied Berrier in the Ellwood City parade.

"[Memorial Day] means more to me, having served there and seen how people live," said Yoho, who served for eight years in the Navy before joining the Pennsylvania Guard. "Without us, what we do, these kinds of parades aren't possible."

Yoho and Assalone served in Mosul in northwestern Iraq as prison guards and as security guards for dignitaries.

But this Memorial Day is also more meaningful for those 107th soldiers who didn't go to Iraq.

Soldiers from the 107th set up camp -- along with re-enactors playing soldiers from the Vietnam war, the Korean War, World War II and the Civil War -- in a park in Mercer as part of that community's lavish Memorial Day observances.

Part of Mercer's observance is a display of 500 flags, each adorned with the dog tag of a Pennsylvania soldier who died defending America.

The displays opened at noon yesterday and will be up through Monday.

"When I was growing up, I never looked at Memorial Day too much," said Spc. Stephen House, 28, of Meadville. "This year, talking to all the guys, it means a little bit more."

Cpl. John Kaschursky, 44, of Sharon, is, in civilian life, a guard at the state regional correctional facility in Mercer. A knee injury kept him from deploying to Iraq with his unit.

"There are seven of us who work together at the prison," Kaschursky said. "To see them all come back, that makes it more meaningful than ever before."

"We really have a lot more soldiers who deserve remembrance," said Staff Sgt. Jacob Gatewood, 27, of Mercer. "We have a deeper appreciation of what soldiers in the past went through."

Gatewood said he volunteered for the Memorial Day detail, which includes sleeping outside with the exhibit, because "we don't get a lot of chances to show people out in the community what we do. That's why events like this are important."

The displays impressed Katy McIntyre, 9, and her sister, Rebecca, 8, who were peppering Spc. Jon Baker, 39, of Grove City, with questions.

Baker, a re-enactor since 1986, was pretending to be a Vietnam era military policeman. He wore the uniform of the 18th Military Police Brigade, to which his unit, the 307th Military Police Company, an Army Reserve unit from New Kensington, was attached when he served in Iraq in 2003.

"Memorial Day has always been eventful for me," Baker said. "My family has a history of military service dating back to the French and Indian War."

Baker's brother, Staff Sgt. Evan Baker, serves in Battery A of the 107th.

Rebecca and Katy McIntyre said they were doing what they could to help the soldiers in Iraq.

"We put a lot of stuff in a box and sent it to him," Rebecca said.

"We write letters to them," Katy said.

Their dad, Dale McIntyre, a math professor at Grove City College, explained that three members of the congregation at Hillcrest Presbyterian Church in Mercer are serving in Iraq, and the congregation is sending them care packages.