A COLOR GUARD helped lead this year’s Memorial Day parade, the first the city’s had since 2019. (Neil Zolot Photo)

By NEIL ZOLOT

MELROSE – For the first time since 2019, a Memorial Day weekend parade and ceremony were held in the city on Sunday, May 28. The parade started at Memorial Hall, proceeded down Main Street to Sylvan Street and the Wyoming Cemetery.

“It’s very important to me and the city, but the most important thing is it’s led by veterans,” Mayor Paul Brodeur said about bringing back the parade. “We wanted to do something for the veterans and their families.”

“We held off because of the pandemic,” the city’s Communication and Community Outreach Coordinator Lily Martin added. “The Mayor decided to bring it back. It’s the right time.”

Brodeur was alluding to the theme of the parade, the importance of families of veterans. “I’m thinking about Gold Star families and the mental health of those who served and their families,” he said.

“Before World War I there was no expression for a bereaved person who had lost a loved one,” Veterans Advisory Board member and Vietnam War Navy veteran James Keane added. “We’re here to acknowledge them and the terrible loss they suffered.”

The idea is one being used in many communities, Melrose, Saugus and Wakefield Veterans Director Roseann Trionfi-Mazzuchelli reported. She works with veterans and their surviving spouses to help secure benefits.

Jeanne Beck, whose husband John died in 2020 as a result of exposure to the Agent Orange herbicide during his service in Vietnam, was one of the Grand Marshals of the parade and rode the route in a Salem Tourist Trolley. “I’m very proud of John,” she said.

Riding in the parade on his own motorcycle was Greg Lawless, a veteran of the Army National Guard from 1969-95 and a former employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs office in Jamaica Plain. “This is the first parade I’ve been in,” he said. “It’s nice people remember,” a reference to the people who lined the streets to watch.

Air Force (1960-62 veteran) Robert Leydon rode in the sidecar of a replica of a 1939 BMW motorcycle driven by Greg Deterding.

Among those mustering behind the Fire Station before the parade was the High School band. “It’s great to get back to this tradition,” band director Matt Repucci said. Given the gap since 2019 it was the first Memorial Day parade for the entire ensemble. He got them ready in a marching band mini-camp earlier this year.

They brought up the rear of the procession which was led by Girl Scout Brownies. Other Boy and Girl Scout groups and other musical ensembles also marched. Fire and Police vehicles were also in the parade.

The High School band played the Star Spangled Banner at Wyoming, afterwhich Keane spoke. “Every generation has gone to war,” he said. “For a peace loving nation, that’s a terrible fact. 1.4 million men and women have died in wars. Remember them and their families.”

Unitarian Universalist Church Reverend Susanne Intriligator offered a prayer “for all those lost and their families who deserve peace.”

After the ceremony at Wyoming, the Norman Prince VFW post hosted a pizza collation.