A parade, wreath-laying, and a ceremony with speakers marked Darien’s traditional Memorial Day commemorations, followed by the (also traditional) Post 53 Food Fair. This year, most of the ceremony was held indoors at Darien Library.
The parade, which attracted perhaps as many as 1,000 spectators, included the Darien High School band, scouts of all types, Post 53, fire engines and firefighters, police and veterans, the periodic firing of a gun by one marcher, and contingents from many groups in town or from the region, including Darien YMCA gymnasts who performed flips and hand stands (see the pictures).
Brian O'Malley and First Selectman Jayme Stevenson ceremonially lay one of two wreathes by the veteran's monument in Spring Grove Cemetery.
Starting at 10 a.m., the marchers went from Goodwives Shopping Center to the corner of Spring Grove Cemetery, at Hecker Avenue and the Post Road.
Brian O’Malley, a West Point graduate who was awarded a Bronze Star for his service with the U.S. Army in Iraq, then served as a reservist in Afghanistan, gave the main address at the ceremony.
“Usually, when I’m here, I’m with the color guard, sitting out there in the hot sun going, ‘Gee, when will the speaker ever stop talking?’ So, with that in mind, I promise you guys, I’ll keep this going as long as humanly possible.”
O’Malley noted how angry people have become about candidates in the ongoing presidential election, and he’d seen Facebook friends getting unfriended by others simply over differences in who the friends supported. He said his experiences in pulling together with his U.S. Army comrades in fighting had given him some perspective in political disputes.
When you ask a veteran why he or she joined the military, the answer can be varied, from getting drafted or wanting money for college or for patriotic reasons, he said. But when you ask a veteran why they went toward gunfire in battle, their answer tends to be the same: “They’ll say ‘for my brothers and sisters on my left and right.”
That’s a pretty universal feeling among soldiers throughout history, he said, quoting the St. Crispin’s Day speech of Henry V in Shakespeare’s play of the same name:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
O’Malley said that he didn’t really understand the passage in an English course he took at West Point, but understood it later when his unit was fighting in Sadr City:
“These men fighting side by side in Sadr City, Baghdad didn’t care about what tax bracket they were from or their religious or political party background. They fought for each other. That’s why a […] pilot will fly […] to evacuate casualties, and why an infantry batalion will race to the gates of hell to recover that pilot should that pilot go down. It’s men and women like this that we’re here to honor today. […]
“In a day when people stop talking to friends and family over political and religious differences, just remember that these men and women sacrificed for each other, regardless of what their views were, where they came from, who they were.”
O’Malley also made a point about commentary he’s seen on the Internet from “people who try to make you feel guilty about having your cookout because of Memorial Day or [by] trying to correct [other people about] the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day. […] As I go off to enjoy my cookout and have beers with some ghosts, there’s a quote I want to leave you with by […] Gen. George S. Patton: ‘It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.'”
Two students who won competitions for essays or poems with Memorial Day themes read them at the ceremony. “For Me,” by Matthew Bergwall, an 8th grade Middlesex middle School student, said, in part:
They left their families for me.
They lost everything, for me.
They killed others, for me.
They’re brave, for me.
They didn’t run away, for me. […]
They risked everything, for me.
From me to them: Thank-you.
Erin Corrigan, a 10th grader at Darien High School, wrote:
Families are left torn, broken, empty of a father, mother or beloved child. […] They gave everything for us, for our country, for you. These are the stories we must remember, we must honor. We must honor the memory as the memory has honored us. We must send this act of devotion to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice — for our country, for our freedom, for us.
Phillip Kraft, the master of ceremonies, thanked library Director Alan Gray for opening up the Community Room in the otherwise closed library after a late-night-Sunday request.
The Monuments and Ceremonies Commission, which runs the parade, was concerned that holding the ceremony outdoors would get everyone wet in rain that had been forecast as late as Sunday night, then thought possible as of early Monday morning. No rain fell, as it turned out.
List of Darienites who died in America\’s wars, part 1 (from the ceremony program)
List of Darienites who died in America\’s wars, Part 2
At about 8:30 a.m., First Selectman Jayme Stevenson alerted news organizations about the ceremony being held indoors. Gray came to the library to open it up and get it ready.
Kraft also mentioned that a flyover had been scheduled for the 103rd Air Wing, but it was cancelled. The planes had come close to doing the flyover, Parade Committee Chair Sara Zagrodzky indicated. “They practiced on Saturday,” she said.
The ceremonies ended at about noon by the veterans monument in Spring Grove Cemetery, where Stevenson and U.S. Army veteran Brian O’Malley placed wreathes. Hundreds of people attended the Darien EMS-Post 53 Food Fest afterward at Tilley Pond Park, which featured food, games for kids and music.
