If You Can Believe in Something Bigger than Yourself

After what feels like suspended animation thanks to COVID-19, we're about to enjoy our first holiday since health precautions and safeguards were relaxed just in time for what many of us consider the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day.

We could be so intent on getting our Summer started, and making up for lost time, we might lose sight of what Memorial Day was intended to be. Some of us have parents and grandparents who can remember when Memorial Day was called Decoration Day and even farther back than that, it was an attempt to honor the war dead of the War Between the States, evolving into a remembrance of all those men and women in uniform who sacrificed their lives to preserve our liberties.

Across Norwich, we’ll have remembrances that can only be improved by your presence and participation. 

Again, this year, the Peter Gallan American Legion Post 104 and the Frederick J. Sullivan Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2212 will hold a Memorial Day Ceremony at the Memorial Park in Taftville (next door to the Knights of Columbus Hall on South Second Avenue), this Monday morning, Memorial Day, beginning at ten.

Everyone is welcome and the ceremony will include members of Boy Scout Troop 80 from Taftville and the Three Rivers Young Marines, as well as local elected and community leaders but mostly just neighbors, like us, pausing to say 'thank you' to people whom we’ve probably never met and who never asked to be thanked but whose sacrifice makes Memorial Day with its barbecues and softball games, as well as every other day here in the Land of Boundless Opportunities possible.

If you can, after the ceremony in Taftville, I hope you'll consider heading to Little Plains Park, formed at the split between Broadway and Union Street, and pause to honor the 26th Connecticut Regiment Volunteer Infantry many of whose members are interred in the Yantic Cemetery. Their memorial in Little Plains Park honors their sacrifice during the Civil War at the Battle of Port Hudson.

From there it's just a few steps to the Cathedral of Saint Patrick where the City of Norwich and the Norwich Area Veterans Council's Annual Memorial Day Parade will step off at noon and continue down Broadway to the Monument Area of Chelsea Parade.

There will be a commemorative service at the parade's conclusion honoring the city’s war dead in all the conflicts which have both shaped and shaken our nation, accompanied by a moment of silence and one final reflection on past sacrifices and full measures of devotion.

We tell one another freedom has a price and each generation must learn its cost. Memorial Day is our thank you to the heroes who paid that price. But we should ask ourselves what is our responsibility to them? We live in a world of instantaneous communication and television sound bites where history and news are often confused with trends and ephemera that render memories meaningless.

On this and every Memorial Day, we should honor and remember all in military service who died because freedom is our most precious gift. Our heroes forfeited their lives for that belief, requiring us to live as engaged and energized citizens deserving of their sacrifice.
-bill kenny