Scaled-back Memorial Day ceremony takes place after rain stops Monday afternoon

The Riverhead VFW Post 2476 hosted a scaled-back ceremony Monday in observance of Memorial Day at the war monument outside Pulaski Street Intermediate School.

Members of the VFW post and auxiliary, elected officials and a handful of community members turned out to mark the occasion.

Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for the more than 1.3 million Americans who gave their lives in military service to our country since 1775.

The holiday has its roots in Decoration Day, a day when Union Civil War veterans honored those who had died in conflict. It was first observed on May 30, 1868, at the direction of General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. Logan proclaimed the holiday in General Order No. 11:

“for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

General Logan called on veterans to tenderly cherish “the memory of our heroic dead who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes. Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms.”

The general’s order commanded veterans to ensure that future generations did not forget “the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

They do this in memory not only of those who sacrificed their lives in the Civil War, but also in memory of those who died in every war and armed conflict from that time to the present day.

On Memorial Day each year, U.S. Military veterans follow General Logan’s order. This year was no different in Riverhead, in spite of a weekend of steady, sometimes heavy rain, and a weather forecast Monday that called for more of the same. The rainy forecast for Monday morning prompted the cancellation of the annual Memorial Day parade and ceremonies, but forecast updates indicated the rain might stop in time for a single ceremony at the war monument on the corner of Pulaski Street and Osborn Avenue. VFW Post Commander Tom Najdzion then tentatively rescheduled a “small ceremony” there at 1 p.m. The weather held true to the forecast and the ceremony went on under overcast skies.

It was attended by Riverhead Town Supervisor Jerry Halpin, council members Ken Rothwell, Bob Kern, and Joann Waski and State Assembly Member Jodi Giglio.

Two wreaths were laid at the foot of the brick monument, which was initially erected to honor Riverhead residents who served in World War II and the Korean War. Plaques were later added to the wall remembering those who served in the Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

A tall granite monument in memory of the Riverhead residents who served in the Civil War stands at the Pulaski Street entrance to Riverhead Cemetery, where 16 of the Riverhead soldiers and sailors killed in the Civil War are buried. At least another nine Riverhead residents killed in that war, fought from 1861 to 1865, are buried elsewhere, according to “We Will Not Forget: Riverhead’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors,”  published by Riverhead Town Historian Georgette Lane Case in 2011 to mark the 150th anniversary of the war. 

A granite monument in memory of the Riverhead residents who fought in World War II stands at the corner of West Main Street and Osborn Avenue. The monument, topped with an gas-fired eternal flame, bears a brass plaque with the names of 306 Riverhead residents who served in the military during the “Great War,” as it was known.

Annual Memorial Day ceremonies are also held at the World War I and Civil War monuments, as well as at memorial sites in St. John the Evangelist and St. Isidore’s cemetery. Those were canceled Monday along with the parade.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Emil Breitenbach Jr.