Memorial Day and beyond – the power of remembering veterans

GILFORD — When Karen Thurston ponders the meaning of Memorial Day, her thoughts turn to the video stored in her computer, with footage of wartime that few civilians have ever seen: Iraqi children playing frisbee and tossing tennis balls in the streets of Mosul with members of the New Hampshire Army National Guard. 

The video was sent from her son, Alex Thurston, who has served in the NH National Guard for 22 years, including in the Iraq war. In it, guard members dressed in desert camouflage are helping to wash out children’s eyes on a dusty day when temperatures edged towards 125 degrees. Some soldiers are waving to smiling children through the windows of their Humvee. Others are waving at the camera, and to those at home. Thurston’s son Alex is kneeling, teaching little ones how to hi-five.

“That’s what Memorial Day means,” said Thurston, a Gilford resident and a Blue Star mother, which means her son or daughter is a veteran or is currently serving in a military branch. “You look at that now.” That video is “emotional but it’s positive," a soothing scene from dangerous times.

It’s the uplifting glow in the children’s and soldiers faces which softens the  blows from loss  - the loss of a unit member and buddy who is missed today. For Alex, the personal casualty of war was his close friend Alan Burgess, one of the soldiers in the minutes-long video.

“They went over as a group and lost someone,” Thurston says quietly, after a long pause.

"Casualty" seems a trivial term for the monumental sacrifice of someone’s life in the line of duty. But it’s these individual lives and stories that are celebrated and mourned across the United States on the last Monday in May.

What does Memorial Day mean to Thurston, whose son, father, stepfather and uncles fought to defend the world from tyranny, and whose son now counsels soldiers?

“It means a day to reflect,” she said, and to honor the fallen – a moment to remember military service members who paid the highest price, and be humbled and grateful for the safety of those who came back, and for the peace and freedoms we continue to enjoy.

“Every day is Memorial Day for us,” said Natalie Healy of Exeter, a Gold Star mom whose son Dan Healy, a Navy Seal, died in Operation Red Wings in 2005, a mission to backup U.S. Marines in Afghanistan that inspired the movie “Lone Survivor.” She has this Gold Star designation because her son died when a device launched from the ground exploded his helicopter. “It means taking the time to think about all the sacrifices men and women have made through the years,” she said.

It’s a day whose meaning is frequently lost or misremembered, or confused with Veteran’s Day or even Labor Day, or viewed as the unofficial start of summer – or a bonus day off from work.

“Veterans Day is really meant to help, support and honor veterans past, present and future,” said Norm Sanborn, 94, of Rochester, a World War II and Korean War veteran who now lives at the New Hampshire Veterans Home in Tilton. “Memorial day is mostly to honor the veterans who died in service, and the veterans who have passed away.”

A memorial attended to every day

For military service families and their close friends and supporters, remembrance is an act performed throughout the year in thoughts and prayers, and phone calls made. It occurs while gazing at photos on the shelf above a fireplace, and when talking to children about their mothers, fathers, or older siblings who aren’t alive to speak.

Across the country, Memorial Day events abound, and not just fireworks, picnics or parades. On Monday at 3 p.m., the U.S. Veterans Administration is calling for a nationwide moment of silence.

“Everyone should take a moment. You’re enjoying your freedoms because of their sacrifice,” Thurston said.

According to the 2020 U.S. census, more than 93,000 of the country’s 17.8 million veterans currently live in the Granite State, and roughly 2,800 served in World War II. New Hampshire boasts the fifth highest percentage of WWII vets of any state, trailing California, Florida, Texas and New York. New Hampshire is number one for veteran-owned businesses, which currently employ over 17,000 people, according to the census report.

Across this state and the Lakes Region, there are ongoing, homegrown efforts to serve, heal, recognize and unite veterans who continue to suffer the ravages of war and disturbing experiences that invade their thoughts - including veterans who continue to volunteer in their communities at home.  The memory of those who perished lives on in the works of others.

At the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen, “We can have 2,000 people show up” to place flags beside each grave before Memorial Day, Thurston said. This year’s graveside service occurs Monday at 11 a.m. at the cemetery at 110 Daniel Webster Highway.

“They say a veteran dies twice – once when he dies, and the last time his name is spoken. When we go there we say their name and we say hello,” she said, tell them we’re taking care of the people they left. “We say hi to Matt and Peter and George and Brandon, and reassure them that we’re here for their families.”

Throughout the year, Blue and Gold Star families are united in missions to honor their lost loved ones by helping surviving spouses and family members through support networks, social gatherings and periodic check-ins.

“It’s the little things we as Blue Star Mothers do to support them every day. We have to remember that at any time, Blue Star families could become Gold Star families,” Thurston said. “We’re all friends because so many of us started out as Blues.”

Efforts that make a difference

Today Matt Dubois of Dover, a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy, is director of the Patriot Resilient Leader Institute, which runs Camp Resilience, a therapeutic outdoor program for veterans and first responders and their families founded in Gilford eight years ago. Since 2014, Camp Resilience has provided 85 peer support retreats that include skiing, sailing, hiking, biking, kayaking, rock climbing, ziplining and more importantly, talking, eating, trading stories and bonding with other vets. Camp Resilience hosts therapeutic weekends for victims of military sexual trauma and for first responders who battle post-traumatic stress.

Throughout the pandemic, Camp Resilience offered programming in person and online, a mission that continues beyond the initial event. After an extended, focused weekend with other veterans, graduates stay in touch through a private Facebook page. “We try to keep the personal contact going” indefinitely, or as long as possible, said Dubois, who served for 25 years as a Navy pilot before taking a job at the Pentagon helping veterans transition to civilian life.

In 2016, Phil Taub, a lawyer who lives in Bedford, started “Swim with a Mission” with his wife, Julie, because they were moved to help veterans, especially those who battle invisible ills. The annual swimming competition of Navy Seals that occurs at Newfound Lake in Bristol raises funds for veterans’ services and statewide awareness of veterans’ challenges. This year’s 1K, 5K and 10K meets will take place July 16 at Wellington State Park.

Over the past two years the Taubs compiled profiles of 50 New Hampshire veterans from WWII to the present in a book scheduled to be released in July. They also created a virtual veterans’ honor wall on their website, www.swam.org.  Earlier this year they launched a fundraiser, Never Forget Plaques, which businesses, schools, stores and gyms can purchase to commemorate the 93 New Hampshire warriors who have died in the war on terror since the attack on New York City's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. So far the couple’s efforts have raised more than $7 million for organizations such as Veterans Count, Liberty House, Camp Resilience, Operation Delta Dog and Hero Pups, and paid for the purchase of service dogs and healing experiences such as art therapy and equine therapy. Last year, they organized five Navy Seal events that raised $2 million over three days.

Even though the number of veterans as a percentage of the U.S. population has declined over 20 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, “There’s not nearly enough money to support these service organizations,” said Taub. “We all truly owe a debt to our fallen heroes that we can never repay. May we never forget that freedom isn’t free.”

This Monday at roughly 10:15 am in Meredith, the Northeast POW-MIA Network will celebrate women veterans and women currently serving with speeches and personal accounts by female veterans and service members at Hesky Park. The network (www.northeastpowmianetwork.org) founded 34 years ago by three Vietnam vets, including Bob Jones of Meredith, is comprised of Blue Star families who are dedicated to keeping POW-MIA issues alive. Every Thursday evening the network hosts a vigil in Hesky Park. On June 16, the group will hold its annual “Freedom Ride” from Gilford to Meredith, with around 1,000 motorcycles driven by veterans, family members and supporters from the public.

After the Vietnam War, “live POWs were knowingly left behind,” said Jones, the network’s president. Recently, "in Afghanistan, live Americans were left behind. If it’s one, it’s too many," he said. "It could be your son or daughter. We heard there were hundreds of Americans left behind. How many are still there?”

Individual and homegrown efforts continue to show deep and heartfelt respect. Civic and patriotic groups, including the Boy Scouts, place flags on Main Streets and in cemeteries in New Hampshire towns.

The power of flags, flowers and fundraising

In Meredith, Carol Davis and Linda Fennel decided to join forces with nationwide “Wreaths Across America” to honor their fathers who served in World War II. Davis placed simple white crosses with veterans’ names on their graves in Oakland Cemetery on Meredith Center Road. She also researched more than 200 veterans buried there, and contacted the family members she could find.

“It’s just a recognition of our veterans,” said Davis. “So often they’re forgotten.  It’s the one thing they don’t want to be.” She likes to share a quote she hopes readers will find moving: “To be killed in war is not the worst that can happen. To be lost is not the worst that can happen. To be forgotten is the worst. So today we will all remember.”

Davis and 11 others belong to Humble Grunt Work, a nonprofit that was started in 2018 by Center Harbor resident Carla Taylor, who wanted to honor her father, a Vietnam Veteran who lost a decades-long struggle against the effects of Agent Orange.

“He was a humble Marine,” said Taylor. “I knew my dad loved God and country. I needed to turn around my anger and turn it into something positive.”

Humble Grunt Works is now raising funds to create Humble House, transitional housing for veterans who are coming out of incarceration, rehabilitation for substance misuse, or homelessness. They will receive assistance and transportation to counseling and medical appointments, and help finding work.

“Everyone in the Lakes Region needs employees,” said Taylor. Veterans, when given a schedule and clear expectations, “are some of the best employees you can find because they’re used to routine and regimentation. They’re loyal, hard workers. It’s what they’ve learned in the service.”

So far, five Lakes Regions businesses have indicated they’re willing to employ veterans that will graduate from Humble House, she said.

For the past three Memorial Days, Humble Grunt Work has placed 660 flags – 22 each day – on the green in Center Harbor, to signify how many veterans are lost each month to suicide. “These vets aren’t memorialized," said Taylor. "They came home still fighting a battle and they lost their battle. When they came home from the war, their battle wasn’t over."

Humble Grunt Work also places wreaths at NH Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen.

“Memorial Day means sacrifice,” said Taylor. “It’s not a day to say thank you. It’s a day of remembrance and reflection. We need to remember what the cost of freedom is.”

Pulling up a gallery of photos on her cell phone, Thurston enlarges an image of an American flag with a red flower beside the headstone for Matthew J. Stanley in Section Four at the NH Veterans Cemetery - placed there because of a campaign started in 2015 by Preston Sharp of California, who was 10 years old at the time. Since then, Sharp has encouraged local flag and flower memorials at rough 260,000 veterans’ grave sites in 35 states.

“For lots of them, there was no open casket when they came home,” Thurston said. “There was nothing.”

Paying tribute today

At the New Hampshire Veterans Home, and through a correspondence with a NH National Guard troop that was recently deployed, Norm Sanborn celebrates Memorial Day every week with a campaign he brought to New Hampshire from Florida: RED Shirt Friday, which stands for Remember Everyone Deployed.  Today, members of Americans Legions, VFW’s, Elks Lodges and police and fire departments across New Hampshire and some employees at Concord Hospital wear red shirts on Fridays to show their solidarity with past and present military service members.

“At least 50% of the Veterans Home residents have red shirts now,” said Sanborn, who is 94. Many will become pen pals with National Guard soldiers going forward. “We want to keep in touch with them, veteran to veteran.” Sanborn joined the Merchant Marine at age 16 and helped to ferry U.S. troops back from France at the end of WWII, before serving an additional eight years in the U.S. Navy Reserves.

When it comes to Memorial Day, “I think some of the feelings have gone away,” he said. Many members of the public and younger people seem more interested in shopping, he added.

But the magnitude of the sacrifice of military service members who died is not entirely lost or forgotten.

It springs to life on Memorial Day and throughout the year, veterans and their families say, because of prayers, vigils, community service, and millions of Americans displaying American flags.