2019 Memorial Day Ceremony

2019 Keynote Speaker

This year's Keynote Speaker is Colonel Tracy Roou, US Army Retired. Roou retired from the U.S. Army in 2016 after 26 years of active duty service.

Roou's army career included postings as a U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer in Kosovo, Ukraine, Russia, Germany, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. Her most exciting and rewarding missions were in Kosovo as the liaison to the Russian Airborne Brigade in 2000 and as the U.S Defense Attaché in Uzbekistan from 2010-2013. In the early 1990s her career began as an Air Defense Artillery Officer in Germany, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Texas. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point (1990), Roou holds a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Arts degree in Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. She is fluent in Russian. Roou is a National Security Fellow and holds an Ignite Business Certificate, both from Stanford University.

The Roou family moved to the City of Falls Church in 2014 to settle in after dozens of moves around the world with the military. Tracy and John Roou’s older son, Finn, graduated from George Mason High School in 2018 and attends Hampden-Sydney College. The younger, Walter, is a current George Mason High School student.