CLARKSBURG, Mass. — Attendees at Sunday's Memorial Day ceremonies at Town Hall were asked to remember the many military personnel who still lay in foreign lands or the oceans deep waters. 

 

Memorial Day is in particular a day to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice, said Joseph Bushika of Peter A. Cook VFW Post 9144. 

 

"Any veteran will tell you that the real heroes are the ones that didn't survive, the ones that died on the battlefield, those that sacrificed their lives for their country," he said. 

 

Of the thousands who fell overseas during World War I and later, many were able to be shipped home to be buried by their loved ones. Many more were buried where they fell across Europe, Africa, the Far East and islands in the Pacific, Bushika said. 

 

"Hundreds of sailors and Marines were buried at sea, loved ones unable to be at their sides to pay their last respects," he continued. "Such is the price of freedom and liberty."

 

Nearly 79,000 military personnel are listed missing in World War II, almost 20 percent of those killed during the war, and more than 8,000 went missing in Korea and more than 2,200 in Vietnam. 

 

He asked that the gathering consider what it must have been like for mothers and fathers, waiting to find out what had happened to their sons and daughters and, for some, never knowing the final fate of their loved ones. 

 

Thousands of missing soldiers, sailors and airmen remain missing in action, particularly from  the wars of the 19th century. 

 

Advances in forensic science has brought "much-needed closure for families throughout the United States," Bushika said, but many others will never know. "Perhaps these lost souls none only to God will come home once they are identified and be reunited with their families and their hometowns ... and be given the honors they truly deserve."

 

Town Administrator Carl McKinney spoke on behalf of the town, saying, "today is a day of solemn gratitude, gratitude to those who have fought for our nation and in so doing have paid the ultimate price protecting our freedoms our liberties and our democracy. They have paid a price that we can never repay. Let these services today uphold the duty and commitment of we who remain."

 

Select Board Chair Jeffrey Levanos and Cecilia Kincaid read poems and Kincaid gave the Gettysburg Address. Leyla Kincaid rang the bell as Bushika read of the names of those from Clarksburg who lost their lives in the nation's wars since the Civil War. 

 

The Drury High School band played a number of patriotic tunes and Laurie Boudreau sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "America the Beautiful"; the Clarksburg Volunteer Fire Company provide and honor guard and gave the salute.