Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Attends Memorial Day Wreath-laying Ceremony to Honor Fallen Service Members

Governor Kathy Hochul today attended a Memorial Day wreath-laying ceremony at City Hall in Albany to honor fallen service members.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Mayor, I truly appreciate your confidence in me and how you are a great caretaker of this city that I cherish and have called home for many years. It's a difficult job to govern this city, and you can count on me to be a willing partner for many years to come. So, thank you, Mayor Applyrs, and to all of our elected officials who are here from our Council and from our Legislature.

Also, our Senator Pat Fahy - more recognizable than anybody, including myself, in the city. She is everywhere, and I thank her for that. And Assemblymember Gabriella Romero, making a real profound difference every day. And also to have our District Attorney be willing to step up and share his emotional story of what it's like to be one of the ones who was able to go home after being in a conflict where you lost people that you knew personally.

Clearly you still wear that weight of that on your shoulders, but I want to thank you for converting that into extraordinary public service and keeping our community safe here in Albany County as our District Attorney. Let's give another round of applause to Lee Kindlon.

Our Grand Marshal, you can maybe march next year. We can get you out there again. I want to thank you, our Grand Marshal, Louis Mion, and his wife Susan. And what I'm struck with your service, because service manifests itself in many ways, whether you run for office or you engage in the community. You have been putting a spotlight on the needs of homeless veterans back since the 1990s, and thank you for caring so deeply about those who did what this country asked them to do, and then instead of coming home to a warm thank you and a home or a job or an education, they find themselves living on our streets. So, thank you. Let's give another round of applause to our Grand Marshal and his wife Susan.

And Reverend Charlene Robbins, I was listening intently to your prayer as you harken the names of all the great leaders during our various conflicts and put a more of an emotional feeling around them. The struggles that they had to endure the night before the great battles are the speeches. And so, thank you for personalizing those who have the weight of the country on their shoulders in those times of need. And also to our Albany marching band, it's never a great occasion unless we have our marching band joining us. I want to thank them as well.

And to the veterans organizations, the Gold Star families, Memorial Day means a lot to different people, and as a leader myself, I'm also in a position where I have to put people in harm's way by calling up the National Guard on occasion. And I have incredible respect for those who served in the armed services and returned and wanted to engage in the National Guard or went right to the National Guard.

And on this Memorial Day, I do want to just acknowledge Major SorfflyDavius, an NYPD police officer, a decorated Army veteran. He was a member of our task force, Empire Shield. They're the ones who are protecting our subways and our congregate areas that we have in New York City that are more at risk, guarding some of our most high-profile locations. We just lost him this spring. He had been deployed by the National Guard to Kuwait to support the conflict in Iran. So even today, we're still losing members of our family. And I just had a chance to get to know his family and speak at his service, and it was very difficult.

But also, I chatted with some of our friends in the back. What incredible pride we feel, not just in the State of New York, but in the Albany, Saratoga, Ticonderoga region. If you've been watching Ken Burns' American Revolution, and if you have not, this is what you do on a rainy Memorial Day: You go look it up and start watching it. Because you'll be perhaps shocked, perhaps you knew, but the most seminal parts of our fight for freedom against an oppressive regime abroad across the ocean all was formulated here.

They talk about gatherings in Albany where people are talking about how we can foster a protest and to stand up and fight for our rights and freedoms. It was amazing to watch this. But also, you saw what they went through, these individuals who served - ordinary farmers and merchants and people just living their regular lives. They were called to serve for years, away from their homes, to sacrifice in unbelievably harsh conditions, walking barefoot through the snow and in dark forests at night and being terrorized by raids from the British, unexpecting.

So you watch this and you're just going to get this sense of awe about what our responsibility is 250 years later as we commemorate this significant anniversary. Know that people who walked in these areas lived their lives here where we do, were called to do something that they never dreamed of but they stood up because they believed in the promise of what a democracy could be, what freedom could actually feel like. And we cherish that because we are the beneficiaries of that.

And also, that means that we are also called on to defend each other and our rights and our values when those are under threat. And I know that our country feels so divided. Believe me, it was divided back 250 years ago - the Loyalists versus the Patriots. It was an incredible conflict. Or during the Civil War, brother against brother, the North and the South. We have had conflicts before, but I want you to know, whether it's a blue state, red state, purple state - it doesn't matter, because if someone shook you in the middle of the night, woke you up and said, "What are you?" I guarantee people all across this country from every walk of life would say, "I'm an American. I'm an American first."

Never forget that. We have so much more that unites us. And yes, we've gone through conflicts and wars, but we're always shoulder-to-shoulder in battle. And I looked at some of our Vietnam veterans who are here, and I was reminded of the fact that I was a young girl, but I had four uncles serving at the same time in the Vietnam conflict.

And I'd watch the evening news with my grandparents every night, go to their house, and they were always watching for some sign on Walter Cronkite of whether there's a glimpse of one of their sons and praying that he wasn't being carried out, transported to the morgue. It was a difficult time to be a child watching those images. But knowing that I had members of my own family gave me a point, a source of pride to know that someone close to me, my uncles who did come home, but some badly wounded, Purple Heart, they came back home to me. And I've always been just so grateful, so in awe of those, even during that conflict, because it was a draft.

Many left. Others, whether you believed in the war or not, still went and served. And all the conflicts all the way up until what we're doing in Iran right now, we have had people step up and say, "I love this country enough. I want to protect my country. I want to protect its values. I want to protect its freedoms for not just my family today, but for generations to come, just as we are benefiting from those 250 years ago."

So in this particular year, on this very Memorial Day, let us not lose sight of the gift we've been given, the gift of freedom. But as you know, freedom is not free. There's been blood spilled to protect that freedom, and shame on us if we ever forget that sacrifice, especially on a day like today. Thank you very much.