Outside the Mount Vernon Recreation Center in Alexandria, members of the community belted out the familiar song "God Bless America" with thoughts of an Army serviceman who once lived blocks away.
"Captain Rocky Versace was a son of a soldier. He followed in his father's footsteps to attend the Military Academy at West Point," said Kevin Rue of the group Friends of Rocky Versace.
"We graduated in 1959 we entered in 1955," West Point graduate and Army veteran Jack Bohman remembered.
Bohman came to the Captain Rocky Versace Plaza and Vietnam Veterans Memorial with fond memories of his former classmate.
He's proud of how Versace conducted himself while serving in Vietnam until he was killed in 1965.
"For two entire years he was tortured and misused by the Viet Cong and finally out of sheer frustration, he was finally executed. He has become a real symbol of the essential military officer," said Bohman.
"He is the U.S. Army's only Medal of Honor recipient from the Vietnam War whose remains have not been recovered and returned by the communists," explained Rue.
Versace's classmates shared a special tribute at the ceremony followed by the playing of Taps.
More than sixty of Alexandria's other Vietnam War Fallen heroes were also acknowledged including Captain George Lockhart who served in the U.S. Air Force.
Robert Daly of Alexandria said Lockhart was his best friend and died in 1972.
He was Missing in Action for several years.
"We didn't get his remains back until 1988 and we got him interred in Arlington National Cemetery," he said.
On this Memorial Day, what does Daly want us to remember?
"We have to look back and remember what these men did. What they did is they answered the nation's call," he said.
Rue then explained the significance of the song "God Bless America", which Versace was known to have sung.
"Rocky was known as a Prisoner of War to increase the morale of his fellow Prisoners of War and one of those songs was God Bless America."
Rue also explained Versace attended Gonzaga College High School in D.C. for two years in the 1950s until his father relocated the family to Europe.