"Remembering Memorial Day"

                                                                                                                                                                  Sydney M. Williams
                                                                                                                                                                  June 1, 2010

Note from Old Lyme

“Remembering Memorial Day”

“The roses blossom white and red

On tombs where weary soldiers lie;

Flags wave above the honored dead

And martial music cleaves the sky.”

                                                                                                                           Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
                                                                                                                          The second stanza from “Memorial Day”
                                                                                                                          Kilmer was killed at the Second battle of the Marne.

It is Memorial Day in Peterborough, NH, when I was ten or eleven, which I remember best. In part, that is because memories of World War II were so recent, it having been concluded only six or seven years prior, and in part because the Parade in a small town is so personal. In a town of 2500 people, 341 (including my father) served in the armed forces during the Second World War – a remarkable number given that there could not have been many more than 400 eligible men. (A few women in the town did serve in the WAVES and WACS.) Thirteen of the men were killed. One of those killed, Theodore Reynolds, had a brother, Rodger, two grades above me. Another who was killed, Philip Sangermano, had a brother, Tony, with whom I used to ski at Whit’s.

Many of the marines, sailors and soldiers who served were men that I knew – Perkins and Robert Bass, Kenneth Brighton, Harley Cass, Paul Cummings, Milton Fontaine, Edward Lobacki, Elting Morison and Walter O’Malley among others. Most marched in the Parade; a few, like my father, chose not to. Accompanying the soldiers and veterans were the high school band, composed of children older than I, but whose younger siblings I knew; along with cub scouts, girl scouts and boy scouts. With several others on bicycles, we trailed the Parade to Pine Hill Cemetery just north of the village on Concord Street. It was a somber moment when, after the laying of a wreath, the sound of Taps could be heard, followed by its echoing notes wafting from the hill beyond.

Of course I did not fully comprehend the symbolic significance of the bugle, repeated year after year, with its spine-tingling response, but I did realize that it represented a moment for the townspeople to, annually, pay tribute and say goodbye once again to those who had fallen in our Nation’s wars. However, I knew the moment was grave and rich in meaning.

Those of us who are fortunate to live in this Country, either through birth or adoption, owe an allegiance of remembering those who gave their lives that the principles of democracy may endure. The signers of the Declaration of Independence promised to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor.” We can do no less than recall that an estimated 1,200,000 have given their lives, since 1776.

Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day, which was first celebrated in the years immediately following the Civil War, and Arlington Cemetery, where more than soldiers 300,000 are buried, have come to symbolically represent all those who have fallen in our Nation’s wars. The scene on Memorial Day at Arlington, in which American flags are placed on the tombs of all veterans, and where a wreath is laid at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, is one in which all Presidents have participated. It is unusual for a sitting President to be absent, as was true yesterday, especially in time of war.

This year, as has been my family’s recent custom, we observed the Parade in the small town of Old Lyme. Middle school and high school bands march as do a Fife and Drum group from Deep River and a Bagpipe Brigade from New London. Scouts and Little league teams proudly march. Antique cars, fire engines and EMS vehicles wind slowly up the street, as do muscle cars, including a Ford Gran Torino and a Pontiac Trans Am from the early 1970s making their presence known with a roar of their engines. With local groups, such as the Old Lyme Historical Society, the Lions’ and the Selectmen, they all drive or march toward the Duck River Cemetery where lie veterans from every war that has been fought on this continent and in distant lands, including those from colonial campaigns, such as King Philip’s War. But the highlights are the veterans, some of whom served in WW II and today are too old to march, with others from Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. Taps are played, as in Peterborough, and its echoing refrain is mixed with the sound of the wind and of the cries of Osprey flying overhead. The notes remind us of our eternal debt.