Veterans' Families, Service Highlight Memorial Day Speeches

At Memorial Day ceremonies held at three Melrose war memorials this morning, speakers asked Melrosians to not only remember veterans who died serving their country, but to embrace the families of today's veterans and honor all service members by using the freedom they fought to defend.

Maj. Eric Dinoto, a Melrose resident and operations officer with the Melrose-based 182nd Cavalry Regiment that's will be redeployed later this year, told those assembled at the World War I Memorial at The Knoll that the families of fallen veterans are all around.

"They are your friends, neighbors, parents, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters," DiNoto said. "Some of them are here with us today and you should meet them and take the opportunity to say thank you."

In addition to supporting the veterans who serve today by thanking them when they return and thanking their families for their sacrifice, DiNoto also said that perhaps the best way to honor veterans is for people to serve in their own way, giving back to the nation and community by acting locally. He asked Melrosians to volunteer their time at a local youth group or school or at a veterans center; join the police auxiliary, a volunteer fire department or the Peace Corps; or something as simple as supporting charity events and causes a person believes in, adopting a section of road; or picking up litter.

"And for the sake of those who gave their lives for our right to do so, get out there and vote in your local and national elections," he said. "May the men and women who gave their lives for our freedom live forever in our memories and may we continue to honor that sacrifice by repaying the solemn debt we owe them in our daily lives."

Bob Driscoll, an active-duty member of the Air Force Reserve and chairman of the Melrose Veterans Services Advisory Committee, pointed out the names on the wall behind him at the World War II and Korean War memorial — 94 killed in action and 7 missing in action from World War II, and eight Melrose residents killed in action during the Korean War.

"They all left the comfort of their homes and the love of their families to travel overseas to defend their country," Driscoll said. "Abraham Lincoln once said, 'We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall have a new birth of freedom and that the government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.' I ask the members of the Melrose community pause this Memorial Day to remember those who have gone before and gave the ultimate sacrifice."

Middlesex Sheriff James DiPaola, who spent 18 years in the Army Reserve and Air Force Reserve, offered a lighthearted moment at the Vietnam War memorial next to Ell Pond, telling those in attendance that his father was a Marine who served in Okinawa.

"He always told me when I first joined the Army what a disappointment I was to him," he said to chuckles from the crowd.

DiPaola recalled his own experience of coming out of high school at the age of 18, his first time ever flying on an airplane, "being dropped in the middle of the cornfields of New Jersey at Fort Dix and just wondering what was in store for me next.

"That feeling is something that I know that everybody who's here who's a veteran has experienced," he said.

That feeling of uncertainty is only magnified when veterans are asked to serve overseas, with so much time and space between themselves and their families, DiPaola said.

"To be in the combat zone where your future and your fate, from moment-to-moment, is just a memory of what you hope to come home to," he said. "It makes me wonder so many times that we think, as we stand here on Memorial Day, to say thank you the families who have given that ultimate sacrifice to their country — one of their loved ones."

Visit Melrose Patch tomorrow for photos from today's Memorial Day parade.