‘Remember their names’: Marion observes Memorial Day with address by local veteran
MARION — A veteran of the Vietnam War encouraged fellow Marion residents to remember the names of fallen American service members during the town’s Memorial Day ceremony Monday, May 27.
Charles Brown, a Silver Star and three-time Purple Heart recipient, asked those in attendance to “please never forget these sentinels of America.”
Brown’s address came after a parade from the Marion Music Hall to the Veteran’s Park at Old Landing. The procession featured the Sippican School Marching Band and the Portuguese American Band.
At Old Landing, Marion Select Board Chair Norm Hills delivered remarks regarding the purpose of Memorial Day.
“This is a day that we remember with gratitude and pride for all those who did not come home,” Hills said. “This is a day to contemplate the cost of our freedom.”
A Marion resident since the 1990s, Brown served in the First Cavalry Division Airmobile in Vietnam during the late 1960s.
He said his cavalry company reunites every year and was doing so as he spoke. During the reunions, they remember the 150 members who died in Vietnam. They state their name, age and hometown. They show their picture and the date they were killed in action.
“It continues to bring tears to my eyes 57 years later,” he said.
About a month after Brown returned home from Vietnam in 1968, a soldier in his company was killed there, Brown said. His nickname was “Smokey.” Brown said his name: Ronald Charles Bakewell. He was from Pennsylvania.
“We will remember you, Smokey Bakewell,” he said.
The day before Memorial Day, Brown spent an hour at Old Landing looking at the memorial plaques and names — “moved,” he said.
“Death is not final until you are forgotten,” Brown said, citing an unknown author, as he remembered Bakewell. “While I breathe you will live on, and your sacrifices for our freedom will be remembered.”
Later in the ceremony, Technical Sergeant Mandy Givens of the Massachusetts Air National Guard read the names of veterans from Marion who had passed away since the previous Memorial Day. A bell was then struck eight times.
