Improvising after a fierce storm stopped him from speaking at a national cemetery near here, President Barack Obama observed Memorial Day by visiting a house for families of wounded veterans getting treatment and, after flying back toward Washington, finally gave his address to service members at Andrews Air Force Base. At the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery about 50 miles southwest of his hometown, Obama had just laid a wreath at a marker for a soldier whose remains were not recovered when the skies, sunny for hours, grew black and blustery. As he waited under a tent to take the stage, lightning cracked at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance and a downpour began. After conferring with a Secret Service agent, Obama approached the microphone holding an umbrella that the winds seemed about to snatch. He told the crowd filling 5,000 folding chairs, including disabled veterans, the elderly and infants, to seek shelter in their cars and waiting buses. 'We don't want anybody struck by lightning,' Obama said, promising to return and resume the program if the storm passed. He waited in a building, but when the rains continued to rage, officials canceled the event, and he left after walking through some of the buses to talk to veterans and survivors of the fallen. The weather upended a solemn ritual that already had provoked controversy as some conservative groups and veterans objected that Obama should have been at Arlington National Cemetery -- though a wreath-laying there is not the unbroken presidential tradition that Obama's critics suggest. (Vice President Joe Biden performed the honors at Arlington on Monday.) President George H.W. Bush, a decorated Navy pilot in World War II, never was at Arlington on Memorial Day, though his son President George W. Bush attended most -- but not all -- of the ceremonies there. President Richard M. Nixon at least twice issued Memorial Day messages when he was at his retreat in Key Biscayne, Fla., though his successor, Gerald R. Ford, went to Arlington both years that he was president. Many of those attending the Lincoln Cemetery ceremonies welcomed Obama's visit. 'These kids are just as important as the ones at Arlington,' said Kris Lundgren, 30, a local schoolteacher, as he waited with his infant son, Kaden, in the shade before the storm hit. Ernesto Gonzalez, 46, agreed, adding, 'This is a national cemetery, too, and we appreciate that the president came.' But Obama had detractors as well. 'He should be at Arlington laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,' said Richard Mateja, 54, who served in the Marines in the 1970s. 