Mayor Mike’s Memorial Day Ceremony Speech

Mayor Mike’s Memorial Day Ceremony Speech

Mayor Mike’s Memorial Day Ceremony Speech: May 25, 2026

Again, Good morning. To our Gold Star families — we see you, we honor you, and we thank you for your sacrifice. To our veterans, active-duty service members, and first responders. To City Manager Mike McGlothlin, members of the City Council, our state and federal representatives, Flagler County officials, and all distinguished guests. And to every citizen who took time to be here today — thank you for remembering.

There’s a TV series some of you might know. It’s called Marshall’s, it’s a spinoff of the Yellowstone series. In a recent episode, Kayce Dutton — the main character, a former Navy SEAL — said something that Cut Right through me.
He said: “The best of us don’t come home.”

Look around you. Every person here can confirm that fact. We’re not out here in this May heat for nothing. We’re here to remember. To memorialize our fallen comrades, our family, our neighbors. The ones who paid in full. We as Americans know sacrifice. Palm Coast knows sacrifice. Every name on our Veterans Park wall is family like mine, a story, like the ones I’m about to tell. We Remember. My family certainly does. My family arrived on this continent in 1631. If you’re doing math, that’s 395 years ago. My clan alone lost five members — men, women, and children — in 1760 during the Cherokee War. We remember. We know the sacrifice. We’ve seen the war for independence. The birth of a new nation and the creation of a new government that has endured the test of time.

We Remember.

My family lost my Great, great, great, Grandfather Elkanah Norris at second battle of Drewry’s Bluff in Virginia, during the Civil War in 1864, leaving behind only two sons to continue our family’s name and legacy. We remember the sacrifice. We remember Soldiers like Dickie Norris, my great uncle, captured in North Africa in 1943 during World War II at the Kasserine Pass. His mother wasn’t allowed to see him for more than six months after he was liberated from a Nazi POW camp.  We most certainly remember. We remember Sailors like my grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Norris — a gunner on a US Navy landing craft when General MacArthur took the Philippines back from the Japanese in 1944. 

We Remember.

We remember soldiers like my great uncle John Collier Norris — Who served with the 3rd Ranger Company in Korea and became one of the first “Snake Eaters” during the early years of the U.S. Army Special Forces. One of the first long tabbers as we call them. We Remember. Americans know sacrifice. Some families know it more than others. And I remember the sacrifice of Lieutenant Ben Colgan — my Officer Candidate School battle buddy. Ben was killed during the Iraq invasion in 2003, just months after we commissioned together in 2002.

Ben had been a Special Operator, rising through the ranks, serving with the 1st Special Forces Group and 1st Special Forces Detachment – Delta Force before commissioning. No one would have ever pegged Ben as an operator. He was a short, stocky guy — more so than me. But man, could that dude run and my goodness he had a wicked sense of humor. He was a Warrior’s Warrior.  Ben was killed by a white phosphorus IED on the 1st of November 2003. He left behind a wife and 2 daughters with a third baby girl due that December.

You’re damn right we remember. “The best of us don’t come home.”

So today, we say their names. We tell their stories. We carry their memory — not just in speeches, but in how we live. Because if we forget them, then they died twice.

May God bless our fallen.
May God bless their families. And may God continue to bless the United States of America