50.0°,
Fair Seaford honors the fallen
Seafordites honored their veterans and the men and women who lost their lives fighting for their country, at a moving ceremony in the front of the Seaford Middle School on Memorial Day.
Several dozen groups including members of Seaford’s American Legion Edwin Welch Jr. Post 1132, and the Post’s Ladies Auxiliary, the Seaford Fire Department, Seaford schools, Scouts and local organizations including the Seaford Wellness Council, Lions and Kiwanis clubs, the Chamber of Commerce and others, marched up Washington Avenue on May 25. The Seaford High School marching band accompanied the parade participants, as did the haunting melody of the bagpipes, courtesy of the New York State Irish War Pipe Band.
American Legion Post Commander William Harms spoke on the meaning of Memorial Day — honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice. He urged the community “to do them honor. When our country called, they left the path of peace. No horror of the field could bare their courage down … while their bodies sleep in peace, their souls go marching on, knowing we are free.”
Legion Chaplain Charles Wroblewski led a prayer of thankfulness. Past Commander Ed Smith read the World War I poem, “In Flanders Field” by John McCrae, that evoked soldiers’ makeshift graves in fields that now are covered with wild flowers.
The flag at the middle school flew at half-mast. Memorial wreaths were placed in front of the flagpole. A rifle salute followed, Taps was played and there was 30 seconds of silence to honor the war dead.
“It’s important to be here,” Chris Tarasco, of Seaford, said. He served in the Marines during peacetime and usually marches in the parade along side his son, Christopher, and the Boy Scouts. But this year he decided to “just support the parade, support the day. It’s about remembering what we have,” he said.
Alan Hlavnek agrees. “We need to remember what it took to have our freedom. Freedoms have costs,” he said. “We should never forget. We owe a debt of gratitude to our servicemen and to our local first responders.”
For 91-year-old Taylor Diehlman, a World War II veteran and member of the American Legion, the day “is about being here with these guys. We march and people say thank you.”
