Memorial Day 2003:
Larchmont Remembers Those Who Served, While Worrying About Those Still Serving

by Judy Silberstein

(May 20, 2003) Posters, parades, flags, reading of the honor roll, firing a salute. To the members of American Legion Post 347, every Memorial Day is special. “This year is different for us,” explained Post Commander Jack Thompson, Jr. “We have six guys on active duty.”

“Usually we talk about those who made the supreme sacrifice,” he said. On Friday, May 30 at 6 pm in Memorial Park, the American Legion will read the “honor roll” of Larchmont residents killed in war. “But this year, we’re also thinking about our six members who are in harm’s way – and not only our six, but everyone.”

There was no debate at the Post about going to war in Afghanistan or Iraq. “Everyone was behind the President and the troops,” said Thompson, but he added, “Nobody here wants war either. Everyone here’s been in the service, and people have sons and daughters in the military. It’s a major worry knowing where they are.”

Short wars are also a relatively new phenomenon for the American Legion members, who mostly served in the protracted fighting in World War II, Korea or Viet Nam. Bill Byrne, who has been working with Joe Charla and the Knights of Columbus to publicize the various Memorial Day events, served a total of 42 months as a meteorologist and two years flying weather reconnaissance over the North Atlantic during World War II.

However, House Chairman Scotty McGhee stressed, “We treat every veteran the same.”

“Whether they’re in the war six months or six years – they still put their lives on the line,” pointed out Executive Board member Frank Ciociola.

Byrnes noted the importance of remembering the particular individuals who served. For him, the list of World War II dead engraved on the plaque in Memorial Park holds particular significance because it includes the names of five of his sclassmates from Murray Avenue School. He knew 18 of the 98. (See: Larchmont Gazette's 1942 Year in Review for the list of 98.) “That’s what caused my efforts to get people to come out this year,” said Byrne. Those fighting today's war in Iraq also figured into his thinking.

Byrne has been going to some sort of remembrance ceremony since he first moved to Larchmont in 1931, before Memorial Park was dedicated. “During the 30’s people didn’t go to Cape Cod or Montauk. They didn’t know where Cancun was. Everybody turned out for the parade – Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts – everyone.”

This year the scouts will again be marching, though to catch folks before they take off on out-of-town vacations, the Larchmont Parade will take place on Thursday, May 22 at 7pm (eight days before the “real” Memorial Day.) Byrne is happy to hear that the Mamaroneck High School and Middle School bands will appear as well. “The addition of the Hommocks band in the last two parades was superlative,” he declared.

Leading the parade will be Larchmont Fire Department’s Tom Andersen, who will also be thinking about past and present military conflicts on this Memorial Day. He’s been keeping in regular communication with childhood buddy and Fire Department colleague Rich Heine, still on active duty in Iraq. According to Andersen, Heine received a chain of 35 e-mails and 15 packages from home last week on his birthday. Said Andersen, “Things were pretty wild,” a while back when Heine was attached to Task Force Tarawa.

Larchmont's Colonel Reed Bonadonna, also in Iraq until Monday, May 19, will be making a last minute appearance at the Parade. "WAHOO!!!! wrote wife Sue. His plane flies into LaGuardia Wednesday afternoon, "just in time for anniversary #14 and the Larchmont Memorial Day Parade!"

Posters, parades, honor roll, firing squad salute: what will be the best thing about Memorial Day?

“The best thing about Memorial Day,” declared Post Commander Thompson, “Is that in the Persian Gulf and Iraq, no new local names have been added to the roll.”