[h=2]Organizers asked for portion of speech to be eliminated[/h]Kemter, a 1962 Hudson High School graduate, said he was trained as a combat medic, was in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1995, and served in the Persian Gulf War.
In the days leading up to the ceremony, Suchan said she reviewed Kemter’s speech and asked him to remove certain portions.
“We asked him to modify his speech, and he chose not to do that,” said Suchan.
Suchan declined to say which part she wanted excluded, but confirmed the two minutes when Kemter’s microphone was turned off were part of what she asked him to exclude. During those two minutes, Kemter is heard discussing how former slaves and freed Black men shortly after the Civil War exhumed the remains of more than 200 Union soldiers who died in battle in Charleston and gave them “a proper burial.”
About three days before the ceremony, Kemter said, he was emailed by an event organizer (whom he declined to name) asking him to remove a part of his speech dealing with Black Americans’ role in an early Memorial Day-type of ceremony. Kemter declined to share why the organizer asked him to remove this part, but said he asked the organizer to specify what portions they wanted to have excluded.