Reading Memorial Day Parade, Ceremonies, Draw a Crowd

They came by wagon and stroller and scooter and feet: babies, children, adults, seniors and veterans.

Some marched in the parade from the on Ash Street to ; some watched.

Reading marked Memorial Day with a parade and ceremonies at each of the town’s four cemeteries: Laurel Hill, , and .

Before the parade reached , Mike Farrell explained why he and his son, Jack, 4, come to the parade. First, to watch Mike’s daughter march with the Daisy Scouts. Mike talks to both his children, he said, about the armed forces, to look at them “with admirability” and that “what they do is good.”

Amanda Amerault, a seventh grader at , came because her brother marched in the Band and her mother, as a band parent, marched, too. She came “to celebrate” – veterans, interjected her grandmother, Linda Iannaccone.

Bruce Hakanson, a Vietnam veteran, whose father and uncles served in World War II, went with his 92-year-old mother to lay flowers on their graves “to memorialize veterans.”

“We can’t forget,” said his wife, Jane.  

At Laurel Hill Cemetery, Reading native Brig. Gen. Jack Hammond spoke.  

On this one day of the year, the graduate of RMHS, Class of 1979, said, we recognize veterans for their selfless acts. Hammond most recently commanded the 26^th Maneuver Brigade in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Too many people take veterans’ actions for granted or, he said, consider them history.

We must never let our guard down, he warned, or forget the sacrifices of the military.

Sometimes it’s hard for veterans to convey their feelings about Memorial Day, according to Hammond. Most, he said, think about comrades lost in war.

Before the program at Laurel Hill started, Officer Sal Lavita said the crowd was definitely a good size. The weather probably helped, he said.

Lucas Prato sat in the shade at Laurel Hill with his daughter, Emily, 10 months. He and his family have come to the ceremonies every year since they moved to Reading in 2007 except for the first year, he told Patch.  Why? To be part of the community, he said, and to honor veterans.

If these guys didn’t do what they did, he said, we might not be here or have the freedom we do.

Judy O’Hare took her grandson, Michael O’Hare, through the shady old section of the cemetery. Her father was killed in World War II, she told Patch, in the Battle of the Bulge. Four brothers went to war, she said; one did not return.

We should remember them, she said, those who never came home.

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