Riverhead veterans groups, elected officials, firefighters, EMS, NJROTC, scouts and the high school marching band came together today for a parade through town and solemn ceremonies at the town’s war memorials.
Turnout for the parade, which marches in a large loop downtown — starting and ending at the corner of Pulaski Street and Osborn Avenue — continues to dwindle. The spectators lining the parade route were fewer than typical, following two consecutive years of Memorial Day rainstorms.
“There was a time when it seemed like the whole town turned out for the Memorial Day parade,” remarked Shirley G.S. Simon, who stood on West Main Street holding one of the small American flags distributed to spectators by parade organizers.
Riverhead was reminded this spring that war in faraway lands will hit close to home. For the first time in years, Riverhead added a casualty of war to the annals of its history: Tech. Sgt. Dashan J. Briggs, who was killed in Iraq on March 15.
Briggs joins at least 41 Riverhead men before him in making the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
The town has sacrificed native sons in nearly all of the major armed conflicts fought by the United States since its inception.
At least 25 Riverhead men died in the Civil War, according to Riverhead Town Historian Georgette Case, whose 2011 book, “We Will Not Forget: Riverhead’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors” tells the story of some of the local heroes who fought to save the Union. The names of 22 of those soldiers are engraved in a sandstone obelisk in Riverhead Cemetery, erected there in July 1871 by one of the town’s leading citizens of the day, John S. Marcy, a State Assemblyman.
The Riverhead men who went off to fight “The Great War” are honored by the World War I Memorial on the corner of West Main and Court streets. The imposing granite memorial, topped by an eternal flame, bears a large brass plaque in which the names of the soldiers “who answered the call of their country to fight for world-wide liberty in the war 1917-1918″ are engraved. The names of seven men who never returned are set apart under the heading “In Memory of Those Who Made the Supreme Sacrifice.”
Two Riverhead men gave their lives in World War II, another during the Korean war and four more during the Vietnam war, with the last casualty of that war being Medal of Honor recipient PFC Garfield Langhorn, who threw himself on a live grenade to save the lives of injured soldiers during a firefight in a Vietnamese jungle on Jan. 15, 1969.
Forty years would pass before Riverhead lost another solider, Army National Guard Sgt. Jonathan Keller of Wading River, who died Jan. 24, 2009.
Army SFC Anthony Venetz Jr. died in Afghanistan on Jan. 28, 2011.
And then in March came the tragic news from Iraq, where Tech. Sgt. Briggs was one of seven soldiers lost near the Syrian border when the Pave Hawk helicopter they were riding in crashed.
“We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.”
A solemn ritual was repeated this morning at each of the town’s war memorials: prayers were offered, wreaths laid, “Taps” played, volley shots fired.
The Memorial Day ritual honors the more than 1.3 million Americans who gave their lives in service to our nation since its birth in 1775.
And the ritual is about remembering — remembering that the lives lost are not just statistics, but people who who “lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,” people who “loved, and were loved.”
And it’s about remembering not just that they died, but why they died — fighting for and defending the ideals on which the United States of America was founded: the truths our Founding Fathers held to be “self-evident…that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…”
Do we remember why? Freedom from oppression, from the wars and economic catastrophes that inspired people to leave their homelands and venture to a new continent to make a better life for themselves and their families. The freedom to worship as one sees fit, or not at all; freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. The embrace of justice, embodied in the people’s right to elect the government — a government which exists only with the consent of the governed.
“I’m afraid most people don’t appreciate what freedom is,” Riverhead Highway Superintendent George Woodson, a U.S. Army veteran, said today. “I just don’t think they appreciate what they have and who got it for them,” he said. “It’s a shame for our the soldiers who died for us.”
“We gather here today to make good on our promise to never forget them, their courage, their conviction, and the greatest sacrifice that they made for us,” Riverhead Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith told the crowd gathered at the War Memorial on the corner of Osborn Avenue and Pulaski Street, in today’s concluding ceremony.
“Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”
The Riverhead Memorial Day parade and ceremonies are organized by the Riverhead Combined Veterans Committee. Participants in this years parade and ceremonies included the Riverhead supervisor, town council members James Wooten, Jodi Giglio, Tim Hubbard and Catherine Kent, Town Justice Lori Hulse, the highway superintendent, Riverhead VFW Post 2476, Riverhead American Legion Post 273, the VFW Auxiliary, American Legion Auxiliary, Riverhead Town Police, Riverhead Fire Department, Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance, Riverhead High School NJROTC, and Riverhead High School marching band.
Remembering Riverhead’s War Dead
Civil War
Albern W. Case
Johnn A. Brown
Mose W. Overton
Robert L. Burns
Minor B. Reeve
John Downs
William G. Albertson
John Darrow
Charles R. Lane
Richard E. Robinson
Francis D. Masin
Nathaniel Hempstead
David E. Dayton
Harrison Norton
Parmanas Terry
Joseph Overton
Francis E. Doane
Dennis Lynch
George W. Downs
Hugh R. Pugh
Robert Henry
George D. Williamson
World War I
Van Rensselaer Skidmore
Anton Zakas
Charles E. Chituk
George L. Tuthill
John Haupt
Cornelius Keenan
Joseph Bonczyk
World War II
Army Pvt. Karl E. Lewin of Aquebogue
Army Air Force Lt. Wesley Steven Kozenka (1945)
Korea
Army PFC Alfred W. Melvin Jr. (1953)
Vietnam
AMH3 Richard T. Pinta (1967)
Army PFC Garfield M. Langhorn (1969)
Army SP4 James Reese Walters (1969)
Navy MM2 Lowell Wayne Meyer (1969)
Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan
Army National Guard Sgt. Jonathan Keller (2009)
Army SFC Anthony Venetz Jr. (2011)
Operation Inherent Resolve, Iraq
Air National Guard Tech. Sgt Dashan J. Briggs (2018)
Editor’s note: The poem “In Flanders Fields” was penned on May 3, 1915 by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian physician, after presiding over the funeral of a friend and fellow soldier who died in battle in Belgium during WWI.
Correction: This story as originally published omitted SFC Anthony Venetz Jr. from the list of war casualties. RiverheadLOCAL regrets the error.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti
The survival of local journalism depends on your support.
We are a small family-owned operation. You rely on us to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Just a few dollars can help us continue to bring this important service to our community.
Support RiverheadLOCAL today.