Island veterans gathered at the American Legion Hall in Vineyard Haven Friday morning to observe Wreaths Across America. Wreaths Across America is a nonprofit that distributes wreaths in honor of veterans and coordinates wreath ceremonies.
On the Vineyard, Wreaths Across America ceremonies traditionally take place in the Oak Grove Cemetery, but foul weather brought the event inside. One by one, eight veterans placed wreaths in front of flags in honor of the U.S. armed forces — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, and Space Force — and in honor of those veterans whose last known status was as a prisoner of war or missing in action.
Tisbury School Principal John Custer brought a group of fifth graders into the hall to watch the ceremony. Those students later shook the hands of the veterans as they were leaving.
“It’s a great event,” Custer told The Times. “We love to go.”
One of the reasons for holding the ceremony, the Rev. Stephen Harding, chaplain of the Tisbury Fire Department, told those gathered, was to “teach the next generation the value of freedom.”
Harding went on to say, “The freedoms we enjoy today have not come without a price. Laying in the cemetery across the street, and in cemeteries throughout this nation, are men and women who gave their lives so that we can live in freedom and without fear, so that we can worship as we see fit, so that we can raise our children to believe as we do, so that we are free to vote for the leaders of our choosing, and so that we have the right to succeed, and so that we have the right to fail at whatever endeavor we wish to pursue.”
Harding recognized current and past military personnel who fight and have fought to “protect the innocent and the oppressed,” and who safeguard or have safeguarded the United States from “terrorism, hatred, and injustice.”
Quoting President Ronald Reagan, Harding said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” He went on to point out through Reagan that each generation must protect American freedom lest they lose it. “We thank those who gave their lives to keep us free, and we shall never forget you. We will remember,” Harding said.
At the close of the ceremony, former Tisbury Fire Chief John Schilling played “Taps.”
At the Ceremony yesterday John Custer told me we had been doing this since 2004. I asked if he was sure and he said yes it was his first year as principal at Tisbury School. Thank you John for always bringing a class to this ceremony.