More than 100 people gathered at Dorchester’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Monday morning to recite the names of 80 service members from Dorchester who lost their lives in service to their country during the war in Vietnam.
Ed Pimental, who served as master of ceremonies, noted it was the 36th annual Memorial Day event at the Morrissey Boulevard memorial since it was dedicated on peaceful spot of land overlooking Dorchester Bay.
Many Gold Star families attended, as did numerous Vietnam veterans and representatives of the neighborhood veteran’s posts. As Richard Memorial and Frank Cahill read off the 80 names of those from Dorchester who lost their lives in Vietnam, carnations were placed for each name at the foot of the granite memorial.
Jordan Mitchell led the crowd in the ‘Pledge of Allegiance,’ and the National Anthem was played, followed by the South Vietnamese National Anthem, and ‘God Bless America.’ The exercises concluded with ‘Taps’ as the silent crowd looked upon the 80 names etched in the Memorial’s stone base.
New flags at the Memorial have been put in place this year by the Griffin family in memory of Thomas Griffin, and a new weeping willow tree has been planted in memory of the late Joe Zinck, a founding member of the Dorchester Vietnam Veterans Memorial who died in 2019.
Source: Dot News
