SADIE CARLINO, a 5th grader at the Galvin Middle School, laid red roses at plaques corresponding to the 29 memorial trees at Moulton Park during yesterday’s Memorial Day ceremony at the West Side Social Club. (Mark Sardella Photo)
By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD — After being held indoors at the Galvin Middle School for several years, Wakefield’s Memorial Day ceremony returned outdoors yesterday and, despite the threat of rain, drew one of the largest crowds in recent memory to Veterans Memorial Common. In addition to several guest speakers, the program included volunteers reading the names of all 161 of Wakefield’s fallen from the Revolutionary War to the present and closed with a thrilling 21-gun salute to the fallen featuring three Howitzers on the Lower Common.
After Veterans Services Officer David Mangan recited the Poem, “In Flanders Field,” Paul Cancelliere of the Veterans Advisory Board introduced Town Council Chairman Michael McLane.
“Today we honor the hundreds of thousands who have gone before us and gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we can be free,” McLane said. McLane said that he was glad that a special focus of the ceremony would be on Vietnam veterans, noting the less than positive reception many of them received.
“There wasn’t a lot of ‘Thank you for your service’ said to Vietnam veterans when they got home,” McLane observed.
Keynote speaker Kristin F. Bauer, a former State Department diplomat, brought the focus to the Vietnam War and the evolution of the relationship between the United States and Vietnam in the decades since the war.
Bauer said that she first visited Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in 1991 and found a country in economic decline and flirting with famine as a result of the failed communist experiment. There were no hotels, few private businesses and few automobiles.
But she went back for a visit several months ago and found a bustling city with hotels, high-rises, shops, tourists and automobiles clogging the streets. She attributed the turnaround in part to the Vietnamese government’s recognition that the collectivist economic model would not work, as well as to efforts by the United States government to normalize relations with Vietnam.
She credited the resurgence diplomatic and economic relations between the United States and Vietnam in no small part to the efforts of Vietnam veterans and the families of fallen Vietnam veterans who created people-to-people ties with the Vietnamese that have endured since the war. As part of that effort, 700 missing U.S. service members have been identified.
Bauer noted that Vietnam is just one example where a former enemy of the United States has turned into a friend or ally. She attributed that to the respect in which U.S. service members are held, even by their former foes.
Also, as part of yesterday afternoon’s ceremony, Brigadier General Paul L. Minor of the Massachusetts National Guard presented the Medal of Liberty to three Gold Star wives: Joan Hurton, widow of Vietnam era U.S. Army veteran Thomas Hurton of Wakefield; Jean Joyce, widow of U.S. Coast Guard veteran William Joyce of Wakefield; and Joyce Benson, widow of U.S. Air Force veteran Bruce Benson. All three men died of service-related illnesses, injuries or disabilities.
As a series of volunteers read the names of all 161 fallen heroes from Wakefield from the Revolution to the present, the Wakefield Fire Department rang its “Bell of Freedom” after each name was read.
Cancelliere also recognized two Wakefield Memorial High School seniors who will be joining the military after graduation. Joseph Patt is attending the United States Military Academy at West Point. Alejandro Borda is attending the United States Naval Academy. Two other seniors entering the military after graduation were not in attendance at yesterday’s ceremony. Mark Letchford is going into the Army and Kyle Fletchall is going into the Coast Guard.
After benediction by Rector Brett Johnson of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, spectators were invited to head over to the Lower Common to witness a formal Twenty-One Gun Salute, the nation’s highest honor, rendered by the Colonial Battery 1st Battalion 101st Field Artillery Regiment, Massachusetts National Guard. The ceremonial battery consists of three M105 Howitzers, which were positioned on the Lower Common. The 101st Field Artillery (“Boston Light Artillery”) Regiment is the oldest field artillery regiment in the United States.
Despite misty conditions and rain earlier in the day, the West Side Social Club’s well-attended Memorial Day ceremony was also held outdoors at Moulton Park.
The 10 a.m. event featured the annual rededication of the original 18 memorial trees planted after World War II as well as the 11 trees that have been added since.
Town Council chairman Michael Mclane shared a personal family story that he would retell at the afternoon ceremony on the Common.
McLane told the story of his uncle, Jerry Riley, who enlisted in the Navy at the start of World War II. By 1942, Riley was seeing action as part of the Pacific Fleet until he perished when his ship, the USS Juneau, was sunk by a Japanese submarine. Only 10 of the nearly 700-member Juneau crew survived.
“As we honor those who made the supreme and ultimate sacrifice,” McLane said, “I think about the uncle who I never had the privilege to meet.”
The keynote speaker at the WSSC ceremony was U.S. Army Captain Brendan Callanan. After graduating from West Point in 1998, Callanan received infantry officer training and Army Ranger training. He was deployed to Kuwait in late 2000.
In March of 2001, while serving as a reconnaissance platoon leader, he responded to a report of a training accident near his location in which six soldiers were killed. The following morning, he recalled, the cell phone that had been in the pocket of one of the fallen soldiers kept ringing, again and again. Callanan knew it was likely a family member back home calling to say good morning.
“That was one of the first times I came face-to-face with the true price of freedom,” Callanan said, as he imagined the family’s initial worry replaced by life-long grief.
“May this Memorial Day serve as a stark reminder of the cost of freedom,” Callanan said, “a cost that has been paid by countless heroes throughout our nation’s history, but also the cost that continues to be paid by those that these heroes left behind.”
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