NAHANT — The Memorial Day Committee is gearing up to honor fallen veterans at the town’s 136th annual Memorial Day Parade Monday morning.
This year’s parade will form at 9:30 a.m. at the intersection of Nahant Road and Spring Road. The route follows Spring Road to Emerald Road, then to the Nahant Town Wharf for the Sea Services Ceremony, which commemorates all fallen sea-service members.
Memorial Day Committee Chair Ed Manzano said the committee would install a sound system at the wharf for the first time this year to ensure all in attendance can hear the ceremony.
“In previous years, basically no one heard anything on the wharf until the rifle volleys were fired,” Manzano said. “We put in the sound system this year. We’re hoping it will actually get much more participation from the people who are on the wharf observing the ceremony.”
Following the Sea Services Ceremony, the reassembled parade will march up Wharf Street to Nahant Road. It will then proceed down to Greenlawn Cemetery to honor all fallen military members.
At Greenlawn, the names of all deceased Nahant veterans will be read, with a ceremonial bell rung after each name. Additionally, Johnson School sixth-grade student Ione Byam Miller — who placed first in a recital contest last week — will recite the Gettysburg Address.
“It’s a very touching ceremony,” Manzano said. “It honors the people who will never take off the uniforms they served in.”
At the conclusion of ceremonies at Greenlawn Cemetery, the parade will reform on Nahant Road and march to the Nahant Life-Saving Station, which is the site of American Legion Post 215. There, the American flag will be raised from half-staff to full-staff.
This year, Manzano said World War II veteran Virginia Fiske, who is 104 years old, will ride in the parade. Additionally, Molly Conlin, who was Memorial Day Committee chair for more than 40 years prior to Manzano’s appointment this year, will be in attendance.
Manzano said the committee started planning the parade in November. Since at least 1990, when Manzano joined the committee, he said the Town of Nahant has never missed a parade.
“We’re really a proud, historic town with a rich history,” he said.
