Brookline Veterans Day 2018: What's Open, What To Know

BROOKLINE, MA — This year Veterans Day, a national holiday established in 1926 to honor men and women who have served in the military, falls on a Sunday. This also marks the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended WWI.

The school holiday is Monday, but the Brookline remembrance will be on Sunday at 11 a.m. It's usually held at the War Monument next to Town Hall, but last year the ceremony was moved indoors on account of the cold temperature.

Brookline’s Albert Edward Scott enlisted in the US Army at age 15 and died in France at age 16, a century ago. On Veterans Day, Scott will be awarded an honorary Brookline High School diploma, according to Town Meeting Member and Navy Veteran Neil Gordon.

According to organizers the guest speaker at this year's event will be Richie Sheridan, a Brookline resident who graduated from Pierce School, BHS (1986), and the United States Military Academy (West Point) in the Class of 1990 prior to being commissioned as an Army Officer in the Field Artillery branch.

While at BHS, Sheridan was the captain of the BHS hockey and baseball team, and graduated as the top male scholar athlete (he is also a member of the BHS Athletic Hall of Fame in three sports). While a Cadet at West Point he was a 4 year letterman in hockey, and was the Captain of the hockey team as well.

He served as an Active Duty Army officer from 1990-2003, leaving the Army as a Major. Sheridan spent the first years of his career in Germany, during which time he deployed for a year to Bosnia, and also served as a Commander for a Multiple Launch Rocket System Battery. He was an instructor in the Department of Physical Education at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point prior to leaving the Army as a Major.

During the Veterans Day Ceremony the town will honor and recognize Private First Class Albert Edward Scott “Scotty,” who attended the Edward Devotion School, and after only a few weeks into his Freshman year at Brookline High School choose to enlist in the Army at the age of 15.

Superintendent Andrew Bott will award a high school diploma (posthumously) to Scott who will also be recognized as having been awarded the nation’s second highest medal for valor.

He was posthumously awarded the medal, and since he was killed in action neither he, nor his family were publicly awarded or presented with the medal. A medal will be pinned on a reenactor attired in an actual WWI Army uniform, according to organizers.

Scott may have been the youngest American soldier in WWI, according to Brookline officials organizing this year's ceremony.

He served with Company H, 101st Infantry as a Rifleman, and was killed in action in Epieds, France on July 23, 1918. According to a 1918 newspaper account, Private First Class Scott was a rifleman with the 101st Infantry in Epieds, France, when he was assigned, by himself, to guard his company’s exposed flank at a crossroads in the Trugity Woods. Armed with only a machine gun, Scott reportedly killed or injured some 30 German soldiers before one of them, claiming to be an American, drew him out of his cover and exposed him to sniper fire.

His fellow soldiers reportedly found him slumped over his machine gun, surrounded by the bodies of fallen enemy soldiers. Scott became an instant celebrity back home. A group of fellow newsboys, called the Roosevelt Newsboys’ Association of Boston, adopted Scott as a personal hero and raised $2,000 to erect a bronze plaque memorializing his final moments.

The plaque itself is on the back side of the town’s memorial to fallen soldiers from every war since World War I. There is a second plaque at the Coolidge Corner School. According to a 1921 article in the Brookline Chronicle newspaper, a parade in Private First Class Scott’s honor drew “men prominent in national and state life, town officials and residents to the number of several hundred” to Town Hall.

Brookline Veterans Services Officer Bill McGroarty, Commander, American Legion Post #11 Elmon Hendrickson, Commander, Veterans of Foreign War, Stephen F. Rutledge Post #864 John Tynan and Brookline resident and West Point graduate, career Active Duty Army Officer Col. Mark D. Johnson will all preside over the day.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Day marks the armistice, or a temporary cessation of hostilities, between Allied nations and Germany during the first world war that led to the end of the war. In November of the following year, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day in recognition of the cessation of hostilities and the Armistice on WWI which occurred on “the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month” in 1918.

However, Armistice Day was originally set aside to honor veterans of World War 1, but following World War 2 in 1954, Congress amended the act of 1938 by striking out the word Armistice and replacing it with the word Veterans. President Dwight D. Eisenhower later issued a Veterans Day Proclamation which stated:

"In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible."

Here's a look at the day's schedule and scroll down for a short list of what's open and closed:

If you know of specific businesses that are open or closed, help out your fellow neighbors by telling us in the comment section!

What's Closed Monday

• Public Schools
• Most banks will be closed to observe the holiday
• Parking ticket window at the Police Station

• Post offices
• Library

What's open

• Town offices regular hours Friday and Monday

The following will be open at the business owner's discretion

• Restaurants
• Convenience Stores
• Liquor stores
• Retail stores (check with your local retailers first)
• Both the MBTA and the commuter rail will operate on a regular schedule. THE RIDE Service will also operate on schedule. View the schedules here >>>

What about trash?

Brookline trash and recycling pickup is on a regular schedule (no holiday delays); all those on the town's trash service should put their containers out for pickup on their regularly scheduled pickup day.

In case you missed this Veteran's story: Remains of Brookline Airman Lost in WWII Come Home

Photos by Jenna Fisher/Patch Staff