Allan Appel Photo
The naval sub base at Groton’s “First and Finest” color guard.
When you wear the uniform, keep it neat and clean and near to perfect. Because the military dead, whose lives were cut off violently short, are inside it wearing it with you.
Take the cliche out of “ultimate sacrifice.” Ponder the absolute finality of a young husband, father, wife, sister, or child who goes out the door and is never seen again.
Retired Colonel Kenneth Gertz.
Those remarks brought home the spirit of Memorial Day at a holiday commemoration Sunday afternoon, as two dozen people gathered by the World War One Memorial Flagpole on the Green.
They were there to lay wreaths, pledge allegiance, hear taps. And they were told that maintaining American values has cost untold numbers of lives, a fact that bears remembering more than one day a year.
The city’s 151st annual Memorial Day ceremonies, organized by the New Haven Veterans Advisory Committee, also featured personnel from the newly reorganized American Legion Post 210 and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) post 12150. In an effort to unite the different generations of local vets, the group is now meeting together under the roof of the Knights of St. Patrick on Upper State Street.
Ceremony participants Potter and Conroy.
The Legion post’s elected chaplain, Brit Conroy, an Air Force medic between 2003 and 2010 who is now studying for her masters degree in public health at Southern, offered opening and closing prayers Sunday. Retired Master Sergeant Clifford Potter was the featured speaker.
Potter set the tone when he called attention to the “1.1 million dead in all the wars of the nation’s history. Brothers, mothers, sisters, husbands — they were loved.”
They leave home one day, he said, and then on another day, “the telegram comes.”
So “we wear the uniform of those who can’t any more. It’s not just me in this uniform.”
In her remarks, Mayor Toni Harp also sought to anchor the all too often cliched phrases of the day in the stark reality of death.
“We casually, almost thoughtfully, use the phrase ‘ultimate sacrifice,’” she said. “We remember that they are gone forever.”
“The totality and finality of the phrase ‘killed in action’ is the same,” she continued.“That’s the purpose of Memorial Day.”
Not far from the Green, WWII memorial in Wooster Square.
The mayor shifted to a comment on President Trump, without naming him.
This Memorial Day, she went on, “it’s also appropriate to address what patriotism means.” This year’s brand of selective patriotism includes, she said, “attacks on the free and independent press as well as questioning the authority of the judicial branch.”
That contrasts badly, she said, with the meaning of Memorial Day.
Tribute to an early veteran for whom Wooster Square is named, and who lost his life in the Revolutionary War.
Toward the end of the ceremony, retired Colonel Kenneth Gertz spoke tearfully about recently burying his own brother at Arlington National Cemetery. Then he turned slowly and pointed to the flagpole behind him. He reminded listeners that it bears the names of the 287 New Haveners who died in World War I, including two women, who were nurses.
“The 102nd [Connecticut Infantry Regiment] trained right here on the Green, where we stand” before shipping out to France in April 1917, he noted. In their first engagement, within two weeks of landing, 17 were killed in the first battle, Gertz added.
As he closed the ceremonies, the VFW post’s former Judge Advocate Sgt. Robert Reed pointed to the young mariners in the color guard from the naval base in Groton.
“We’ve done our job,” remarked Reed. “This is the next line to protect our freedom.”
Earlier in the afternoon many of these same participants laid a wreath at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Long Wharf Drive. Later, in the early evening,the day’s ceremonies would conclude with a concert of patriotic music offered by Orchestra New England on the campus of Southern Connecticut state University.
In her remarks, Mayor Toni Harp also sought to anchor the all too often cliched phrases of the day in the stark reality of death."We casually, almost thoughtfully, use the phrase 'ultimate sacrifice,'" she said. "We remember that they are gone forever.""The totality and finality of the phrase 'killed in action' is the same," she continued."That's the purpose of Memorial Day."
War Is A Racket
By Major General Smedley Butler
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
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