SWAMPSCOTT — Memorial Day, observed on the last Monday of May each year, commemorates the men and women who died serving the United States in the military. This Memorial Day, the town will pay homage to all fallen service members while honoring two local veterans who were killed in action while serving in Iraq.
Memorial Day ceremonies in Swampscott will start Friday afternoon on the Town Hall’s lawn as volunteers honor fallen service members from Massachusetts in the Field of Heroes memorial. Lawn signs displaying the names and photographs of nearly 400 armed forces members from the Commonwealth who were killed after the September 11 attacks will stand outside Town Hall from 4 p.m. Friday throughout the weekend.
At 6 p.m. Friday, veterans and community members will read the names of the fallen at a Field of Heroes ceremony outside Town Hall. Jaclyn Raymond, the mother of Jared Raymond, a U.S. Army specialist who was killed in action in 2006 while serving in Iraq, will speak at the ceremony.
Lynn and Swampscott Director of Veterans Services Mike Sweeney, who organizes both municipalities’ Memorial Day services each year, said the Field of Heroes display will be a powerful start to the weekend.
“It’s a really poignant display,” Sweeney said. “It’s everybody — not just in Swampscott — across all of Massachusetts, fallen since 9/11. It has the picture of everybody, and that includes those who were killed in action and those who’ve lost their lives to what we call the invisible wounds of war.”
In December, Sweeney and the Town of Swampscott erected a stone memorial honoring Raymond at the corner of Essex Street and Swampscott Road.
On Sunday, another fallen hero from Swampscott will be honored at 11 a.m. at the corner of Windsor Avenue and Foster Road. The Honorable Few Marine Corps League Attachment 1302 motorcycle club will hold a memorial ceremony for Jennifer Harris, a Marine Corps captain from Swampscott who was killed while serving in Iraq in 2007.
Jaclyn Raymond and Ray Harris, Jennifer Harris’ father, will lay the wreath at 10 a.m. Monday to honor the fallen at the town’s Memorial Day program in the veterans’ section of Swampscott Cemetery. The program will precede a separate program sponsored by the VFW Post 1240 Auxiliary at 10 Pine Street.
Memorial Day, then called “Decoration Day” was first observed as a federal holiday in 1971, although it was first recognized in 1868 to honor those who lost their lives fighting in the American Civil War. While it’s not uncommon for Americans to view Memorial Day weekend as a vacation weekend, or the official start of summer, Sweeney said public attendance of these ceremonies keeps the holiday’s true purpose — remembering and honoring fallen soldiers — alive.
“Throughout Memorial Day weekend, these are opportunities for the community to come together to remember the fallen and to honor their memory,” Sweeney said. “I encourage people to come down and to bring their families because this is the way we show the next generation what is important. We have an obligation to show them, and this is part of how we do that.”
