Memorial Day brought a crowd out to the Veterans Memorial at the Cedartown City Complex on Monday morning, and during one of the coolest late May holidays in recent memory those gathered to remember the sacrifice of our nation’s men and women who have served in the armed forces.

Among those memories shared during this year’s service was that of George Mundy, himself a vet of the JAG in the U.S. Air Force and son and nephew to bona fide heroes.

Mundy was asked by the American Legion Post 86 to share his thought during the annual service on Monday, and he brought personal moments from his father and uncle’s life, and of his own time spent in in service.

His father served on Guadalcanal, his Uncle as an Army pilot and trainer and later a high level Air Force commander, and himself as an Air Force attorney as two generations spent time in the service and faced real dangers.

Especially those exploits of uncle George W. Mundy, who retired as an Air Force Lieutenant General who headed the SAC Command in Alaska. A younger flyer earned his wings during the 1920s, served across the globe in the 1930s (including a stint in the Philippines,) and even worked in London as a military attaché prior to the United States’ entry into the war.

He was on hand during the Blitz, and according to his nephew flew an unarmed Spitfire that ended up over occupied France, which he knew after flying out of a cloud bank and getting low enough to see street signs in French.

GALLERY: Memorial Day in Cedartown

The World War II exploits don’t end there. He was a training officer teaching pilots while Col. Doolittle got ready for the infamous B-25 raid over Tokyo after Pearl Harbor, he took up multiple Army Air Corps base commands before being transferred to the Pacific where he flew a B-29 named the City of Galveston over Japan for 14 missions as commander. During one of those missions, he and his crew bailed out and were rescued by a submarine.

Mundy – due to his friendship in part with Lemay and his experience in base and squadron commands – moved into the Air Force and was eventually promoted to Brigadier General. He also survived a B-17 crash in postwar Japan.

After additional stints in various commands and additional executive training programs in the military, he ultimately was named Commander-in-Chief on the NORAD command of Alaska.

SUBSCRIBER VIDEO: full service from Cedartown Memorial Day 2023

Mundy’s father also served during World War II on Guadalcanal just after Navy lost the Battle of Savo Island in 1942, among other spots in the Pacific.

Decades later, Mundy himself became an attorney and post Law School entered the Air Force and served as a Captain at a SAC base in California at the tail end of the Vietnam War. He was expected to head to Southeast Asia to be an attorney in theater for the Judge Advocate General for the Air Force, but didn’t make it overseas. Instead his time behind a desk was spent in Southern California, which he noted that he did enjoy.

The annual event at the Veterans Memorial did also provide another opportunity: hearing Marvin Williams sing the National Anthem and God Bless America.

American Legion Post 86 in Cedartown hosts the annual service in Cedartown, along with the Veteran’s Day service coming later this year.