The Town of Acton’s Department of Veterans’ Services and the Celebrations and Ceremonies Committee are organizing the annual Memorial Day Parade and Ceremonies scheduled for Monday, May 27th. This year’s parade will take place in West Acton, leaving the Gates School at 10 a.m. sharp and proceeding along the following route: Spruce Street to Mass Ave to Windsor Ave into Mt. Hope Cemetery. The main ceremony will take place in Mt. Hope cemetery at 10:40 a.m. After the main ceremony we will continue down Central Street and finish with an abbreviated ceremony on the West Acton Common on Mass Ave. In consideration of the safety of all who are marching, the parade will re-form and proceed down Arlington Street to Spruce Street to the Gates School where the parade will be dismissed. We hope you can join us in this wonderful ceremony to honor our nation’s heroes. For all youth groups who wish to participate, please contact Gail Sawyer at 978-621-2308 or glsawyer374@gmail.com. If you have any questions please contact James MacRae, Acton Veterans’ Service Officer, at 978-929-6614 or vso@acton-ma.gov.
Asked to provide a quote about the observance, which he organizes year after year, MacRae said, “As far as a quote, I can send you something from one of my speeches. However, I really like this quote from JFK. John F. Kennedy, a Navy veteran of World War II and Purple Heart recipient once said, ‘As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.’
“I also like this one, an excerpt from Ronald Reagan’s 1982 Memorial Day Speech at Arlington National Cemetery. ‘The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice, so too must we — in a less final, less heroic way — be willing to give of ourselves.’”
James MacRae is District Director of Acton-Boxborough Veterans’ Services