Honoring Sacrifices of Fallen Soldiers for Memorial Day

[Viktor]

The day after Memorial Day 2019, the Vikings held a voluntary Organized Team Activity practice and welcomed families of eight fallen U.S. Military members.


TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) helped connect the families with the Vikings.


Becky Ewing and her 3-year-old grandson, Asher, were invited on behalf of Sgt. Zachary Ewing.


Sgt. Ewing (Becky's son and Asher's uncle) passed away Aug. 27, 2016, after a yearlong battle with cancer that was discovered in 2015 after Sgt. Ewing was injured during his second deployment to Iraq.


Asher was greeted with a fist bump from Dalvin Cook, who took notice of the young man's Batman-themed sunglasses, saying, "Wow, I've never met a real superhero before!"


Becky described attending a Vikings game before Sgt. Ewing's second deployment.


"We definitely made time to come to a game before his second deployment. Make the memories before they go, just in case something happens," said Becky. "It was great to just have a day as a family."


Capt. Brad Cedergren (ret.) and his family attended in honor of his brother, U.S. Navy Hospitalman 3rd Class David Cedergren, who passed away Sept. 11, 2004, in a non-combat incident near Iskandariayah, Iraq.


"He loved the military," Capt. Cedergren said. "He actually was about two weeks away from coming home from his deployment, and one of the things that he had talked about was going to Navy Seals training and being a corpsman with the Navy Seals. He wanted to continue medical in some capacity. Being over there, there's not a whole lot of great things to talk about, but he looked optimistically at it. He would talk about the 'long, never-ending beaches of Iraq.' He was just a really optimistic guy."