Several hundred people gathered to watch as the annual Memorial Day Parade made its way from the Olde Burial Ground on to the Lexington Battle Green for the 2012 Memorial Day celebration in Lexington. The day’s events began with wreath laying ceremonies at the Fallen Fire Fighter Memorial located at the Fire Department headquarters Lexington, and at the Westview Cemetery on Bedford Street. The parade participants gathered at the old School Administration Building (The White House) where they proceeded to the Munroe Cemetery for a reading of General Logan’s Orders which established Memorial Day, and the Gettysburg Address. The a visit to the grave of Thomas Cosgrove, a Medal of Honor recipient from the Civil War. The parade then proceeded to the Hodgdon Memorial at the Lexington Police Department and to the war memorial in front of Cary Hall. Wreaths were placed at both memorials. The group then marched down Massachusetts Avenue to the WWII Memorial located next to the Lexington Visitors Center where they placed wreaths there and at the memorial for the Minute Men who fought on the Lexington Green in the early morning hours of April 19th, 1775.

 

 

The parade then moved along to the Olde Burial Ground where the Minute Men paid tribute to Captain John Parker and placed a wreath at his grave.

Once gathered on the Lexington Green, the celebration was called to order by Suzie Barry, chair of the Lexington Town Celebrations Committee. Both the American Flag and the Vietnam/MIA flags were raised as those in attendance saluted or stood with hands over hearts. The most poignant moment came as Suzie introduced Alma Hart of Bedford. Alma spoke eloquently about her experience as a mother who has lost a son at war. her son, PFC. John D. Hart was killed in action on October 18, 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Her comments were moving, and her courage and determination to celebrate her son’s sacrifice was nothing less than extraordinary.

 

Remarks by Alma Hart on the Lexington Green, Memorial Day 2012

Memorial Day 2012

Today we celebrate Memorial Day. We celebrate it! On this one day, we Americans set aside politics and commerce, and take time to reflect on all that was lost by the brave men and women who died in the service of our country.

Many of you standing here today are also remembering a friend or a loved one. Please, for just a moment, raise your hand and be recognized.

Often, in the early morning, lying in my bed, I become aware of a longing to see John again. As I awaken, I remember that he is dead. On those mornings, I stop to look at the photos from his childhood hanging in the hallway. Many mornings, I see my husband stop to look at those same photos.

Being here on Lexington Green brings back so many memories: like the first time we brought our towheaded tykes to see the Patriots Day Re-enactments. It was pouring rain and 40 degrees in the predawn gloom as we trudged here in our brand new raincoats and boots. As the sun came up the Minutemen took their positions while the Red Coats approached through the mist. I remember the drums, the shouting, the gunfire. As you know the fight only lasted a few minutes, but 5 year old John never forgot it.

Many times we have brought visiting family here and stopped to read the sign on Jonathan Harrington’s house. It says that mortally wounded that day, he crawled home and died at his wife’s feet. Imagine that. What would the Harringtons think if they could look around at us today and know that we remember him for a day when all seemed lost?

One year we brought John’s Cub Scout Den and watched them swarm a couple of Colonials who showed them how to load and fire the guns. My boy never out grew wanting to be a soldier. The events of 911 the year he graduated Bedford High only strengthened his resolve. Preparing for boot camp the summer of 2002, he ran along Battle Road once a week with his backpack loaded with books for weight. We were so proud of him. When the country called he answered like the militia on the Green.

October 18, 2003 John had just turned 20. He was the machine gunner in an unarmored Humvee at the rear of a three vehicle convoy ambushed on a lonely road at night. My fair haired, broad shouldered boy stood up and fired his weapon to defend his injured buddies. When he ran out of bullets he was shot in the neck at close range and killed.

Bedford also lost a marine in Iraq. Lance Corporal Travis Desiato was 19 November 15, 2004 when he kicked in a door in Fallujah and found himself outgunned by a group of fanatics who had built a bunker inside the building. His Marines fought several hours to recover him, and in the end to bring his body home.

It would be wrong to hide the costs of war. It has become too easy to send another man’s son to war. The courage to act is the final tribute to those who came before us and a lasting legacy for those who come after us.

In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt spoke at the Sorbonne in Paris about Citizenship in a Republic. He said, “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. “

We buried our child as a young soldier in Arlington National Cemetery on a gentle slope of green lawn. Following the hearse into the cemetery I was moved by the visitors who stopped on the sidewalks to pay their respects. They stood there, holding their hands over their hearts watching the flag draped casket go by. Earlier that morning I had put a note in that casket promising John I would think of him every day. And I have.

Two years ago the Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund began a new tradition. Last week hundreds of volunteers planted 33,000 flags on Boston Common to honor our Massachusetts Fallen from the Civil War to today. If you haven’t had a chance to see them in person, take a minute to look at the pictures. Breath taking and heartbreaking, each flag represents a life well lived and tragically cut short. I look at that field and remember the beauty of a child’s smile and a young man’s dreams.

Our flag flies over Lexington Green every day and it never sets. Whenever you see Old Glory waving in the breeze, remember the grit, determination and sacrifice of our forebears. Memorial Day is not about men and women who gave their lives willingly. No, they loved life with all its joys and challenges. They were willing to risk all, their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for a cause and an outcome yet uncertain. Some fell in the fight and some remained standing. On Memorial Day we celebrate the fallen: the Desiatos, the Harts, the Harringtons and all the others who dared greatly in military service to our country.

A poem by John Maxwell Edmonds in World War I became popular as an epitaph:

We died and never knew,

But, well or ill,

Freedom, we died for you

Went the day well?

Those who fall in war do not know how it ends. How it ends is up to us. I am honored to be asked to speak here today.

Thank you.

Alma Hart