Criminal Minds’ Joe Mantegna & Gold Star Mothers’ Ruth Stonesifer On The National Memorial Day Concert

For the last 13 years, Joe Mantegna, star on CBS’s Criminal Minds, has hosted PBS’s National Memorial Day Concert which honors all Americans who served this country in the armed forces. “It is to honor Memorial Day which I feel is the most important holiday the country has, because without Memorial Day, we would have no other holiday,” Mantegna told uInterview.

The concert is not only for the armed forces, but for their families who also bear a heavy burden, specifically if their loved ones are not among those who return. Mantegna joined American Gold Star Mothers’ Ruth Stonesifer, whose son was the first casualty of the Afghanistan War, to discuss Memorial Day and the meaning of the concert. “The concert is a wonderful performance that is dedicated to the service that the men of the armed forces do,” Stonessifer told uInterview. “It is a tribute to them for their past services as veterans and for the fallen and for the families that support them.”

The 90-minute concert will air on PBS on Sunday, May 25 starting at 8 p.m. and will be co-hosted by Mantegna and Gary Sinese.