Veterans Day hits close to home for Marblehead selectman Christensen

MARBLEHEAD-Wednesday morning’s ceremonies were more than an observance for Selectman Harry Christensen.Wednesday morning was the seventh day since the horrific shootings at Fort Hood, where Christensen’s son Matthew is stationed. Like all other Fort Hood personnel, Army Spec. Matt Christensen is under orders not to talk about what happened there last week.Christensen, a Reservist, is in his last two months of a three-year tour of active duty. He spent one of those years in Korea.His father said there is a possibility that he may be ordered to remain on duty for an additional year in a war zone – but last Thursday when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded 31 more in a base auditorium, Matt Christensen got his first taste of combat. Christensen and several other soldiers spent hours barricaded in a base storage building.The selectman still hopes his son will return home in December on schedule, with his wife, Laura, and their son Donovan.”My dad served in World War II,” Christensen said. “I never thought about what he must have been going through when I served in Vietnam.”Harry Christensen, who was wounded in Vietnam, was thinking about his father Wednesday. He attends the town Veterans Day ceremonies each year and was impressed by the crowd of about 200 in the upstairs auditorium.”This crowd gets bigger every year,” he said.They had come to remember fallen comrades and to hear Navy Cmdr. Stephen Burke, a Marbleheader, talk about what his career has taught him, that in his view Afghanistan is undergoing “a crisis of confidence” and American military efforts need to provide that country with “a secure environment in which they can live.”They remembered the living as well. One woman walked up to Christensen beaming and gave him a quick hug. “You’re a real hero,” she said.When Veterans Agent David Rodgers asked Christensen to act as substitute chaplain for the ceremonies, he agreed. For him, stress or not, Wednesday was about duty.