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towN CRieR Friday, November 15, 2013
Roses honor town’s fallen
Youths take part in ceremony marking Veterans Day By ERICA SCHMITT STAFF WRITER
Newington is a veterans’ town — with a large Memorial Day parade, an Iwo Jima Memorial, a VA Hospital and two veterans’ housing complexes. For that reason, it’s only fitting the town would host a special Veterans Day ceremony. More than 100 people gathered at Town Hall Monday for just that. The Ceremony of the Roses honors Newington’s 29 fallen soldiers, and is a big part of the event. It was started in 1986 by the late Iwo Jima veteran
Volume 53, No. 45
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Kiwanis President Frank Zuraski and the late Brigadier General John Carragher and is still performed twice yearly, on Veterans Day and Memorial Day. As the name of each veteran who has since passed on was called to the sound of a drum roll, a Newington Boy Scout and a member of the Newington High School Kiwanis Key club walked from the back of the hall to place a rose at the Kiwanis Veterans monument outside. A wreath was also placed at the monument by American Legion Commander Sebastian Amatore. Retired Command Sergeant Major Kenneth O’Brien served as Monday’s Master of Ceremonies, and the Singing Seniors of See CEREMONY, Page 5
Erica Schmitt | Staff
Iwo Jima veterans Tom McMellon, left, and Ray Greene, a New Britain resident, share war stories during a Veterans Day ceremony Monday at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Newington.
Iwo Jima survivors honored at memorial By ERICA SCHMITT STAFF WRITER
NEWINGTON — Sitting beside each other Monday looking up at the monument honoring their fallen brothers were Iwo Jima survivors Ray Greene and Tom McMellon. “We’re both 88 years old now; we were 17 when we went in,” said Greene, a New Britain resi-
dent who was an aerial gunner in a dive bomber during the Battle of Iwo Jima. The pair spent Monday’s early afternoon hours recounting memories from 1945 for wide-eyed listeners young and old at the annual Veterans Day ceremony held at the Iwo Jima Memorial. “While he was down there getting shot at I had the more
exciting job,” Greene said, nodding at his friend. “I was in the back seat with a machine gun; in case any airplanes came after us I was supposed to shoot them down. All the time I was up there I was thanking God I wasn’t down below with the poor grunts trying to take the island.” See IWO JIMA, Page 9
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