By BOB BAKER
As we pay tribute to the memory of our honored dead, it’s time to shed light on the exceptional contributions made by the town of Swampscott.
We all think of Swampscott as a tight-knit, family-centric community of about 14,000 residents, known for its high school teams that never quit and a can-do spirit.
Prepare to kick it up a notch.
Swampscott has gone above and beyond the call of duty in the war on terror. The storyline might well sound like a Hollywood pitch for a war movie dreamt up by an intern in Central Casting.
Instead, it’s an authentic Greek tragedy played out in a small American town, in the air over New York and in the cataclysm that launched our Crusade and in the air and on the ground in a world of hair-trigger danger oceans of human values away.
Swampscott is a hometown of heroes.
Hemingway defined heroism as grace under pressure. He almost had it right. I say, bravery and beauty. The beauty allows for a dimension of heroism which isn’t the doing of the heroic deed. Rather, it’s according honor to the brave in a fittingly beautiful way.
Swampscott resident, and father of three, Robert Jalbert was one of the first martyrs in the war on terror. The 61-year-old sales engineer was aboard United Airlines Flight 175, one of the hijacked planes which crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11. One of his sons, Michael, attended the dedication of the Memorial a decade later.
“It’s about remembering Dad and everybody else who died that day and honoring their memory,” he said. “It’s also a day to think of the friends and neighbors who reached out and were there for us when we needed them.”
Beautiful.
It would’ve taken a super-smart Steve McQueen to play the part of Michael Kelly. A brilliant, witty guy with a wife and two children who came to prominence as editor of Atlantic Monthly and who had more than a trace of swashbuckler in him. He rejected the ban on warfront reporting of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by borrowing or renting cars, even hitching a ride on an Egyptian tank so he could report the war first-hand.
He was the first embedded American journalist killed in action when Iraqi fire knocked out the Humvee he was in. The Atlantic created the Michael Kelly Award in his honor, “For fearless pursuit of the truth.”
Army Specialist Jared Raymond was 20 when he was killed by a homemade bomb that detonated near his tank in September of 2006, in Balad, Iraq. There’s a Gold Star Run in his honor. His proud mom is Jacki Raymond.
“We’re the land of the free because of the brave,” said Agnes Raymond, Jared’s grandmother.
She remembered his eagerness to serve his country.
“We couldn’t change his mind,” she added.
Hero, hero, hero.
Marine Corps Capt. Jennifer Harris, 28, was the only child of Raymond and Rosalie Harris. She was beautiful to see, beautiful to know. The All American girl-next-door was killed in Karmah, Iraq in February 2007, just days before she was scheduled to come home after her third tour of duty. She petitioned her superiors to fly a final mission to bring blood supplies to the wounded she’d just rescued. Her radio moniker was “The Dove,” the wounded she rescued christened her “The Angel.”
Gov. Charlie Baker’s family call Swampscott home. The governor recently gave a moving tribute to Harris at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument on the Boston Common. Baker knows a thing or two about bravery, too. He and his family had been there for his mother throughout her courageous struggle with Alzheimer’s, up until her recent passing. His description of his mother and his relationship with her approaches reverence, the highest form of beauty.
“I am my mother’s son,” he said.
Today is a day to celebrate bravery and beauty throughout this proud land of ours and with a special salute to Swampscott. Until football season starts, that is.
All four were celebrated at a funeral Mass at St. John the Evangelist in Swampscott.
Bob Baker owns a branding/creative services firm in Marblehead. He has written a memoir which is going to be published…sometime.
