SOUTH DEERFIELD — Students from Deerfield Academy, Deerfield Elementary School and Frontier Regional School took a moment this week to remember the meaning behind Memorial Day with local veterans.
In advance of the town’s Memorial Day parade on Monday, members of the Memorial Day Committee and Hale-Clapp Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3295 joined students in marking the gravestones of fallen soldiers with American flags.
On Monday, the Deerfield Academy baseball team joined members of the VFW at Laurel Hill Cemetery, when Kathleen Belanger of Deerfield, a Gold Star mother, described the sacrifice of her son Gregory Belanger, who lost his life serving in Iraq.
Members of VFW Post 3295 fire a volley honoring veterans buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Deerfield on Monday. Credit: PAUL FRANZ / Staff Photo 
Kathleen Belanger, left, who lost her son Gregory Belanger in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, talks to Deerfield Academy baseball team members by her son’s grave at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Deerfield on Monday. The team was there to assist members of VFW Post 3295 to flag 128 veterans’ graves. Credit: PAUL FRANZ / Staff Photo
Younger students joined in on the commemoration when committee members Gretchen Bysiewski and Fred Beckta explained the memorials honoring veterans on the town common to Deerfield Elementary School fifth graders, before marking a few graves at Brookside Cemetery on Tuesday.
Newly appointed members of the Frontier Regional School National Honor Society planted more American flags on the gravestones of veterans at the Brookside, Holy Family and Holy Name of Jesus cemeteries in town on Thursday. As the students planted flags, veterans talked about their time in the service and the importance of Memorial Day.
“We’re hoping they’re going to remember this and continue the tradition,” Beckta said. “There’s so many [soldiers] that are forgotten. It’s the least that we can do.”
At the Holy Family Cemetery, Beckta told the students about his father, a veteran who joined the Army at 16 years old and was buried in the cemetery.
“They never thought they’d come back from World War II, that’s why they got all those tattoos,” Beckta told the students, chuckling.
“It’s good to know that they understand what men and women have done before us,” VFW member Terry Halbach said as he watched Frontier students mark a gravestone in Holy Family Cemetery. “People get to be reminded it’s not about veterans — it’s about people who gave their life.”
The flagging echoed the origins of Memorial Day in the 1860s, when communities in the North and South scattered flowers around the graves of fallen Civil War soldiers during “decoration days” in the spring, according to the National Cemetery Association. On May 5, 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a political organization of Union veterans, issued the “Memorial Day Act,” formally establishing the tradition of honoring American soldiers who died in service as a holiday, originally called “Decoration Day.”
While the students and VFW members flagged the fallen American soldiers’ graves at Holy Family Cemetery, Barbara and Frank Bonk, also a veteran, planted periwinkle flowers at the grave of her grandparents, who served in World War II.
Looking around at the team effort between the Frontier students and VFW veterans, she said, “This is what the generation and the future generations need. It’s not all fun and games.”
“Every human being wants to be remembered, and veterans sacrificed a lot,” said Roger Goshea of Conway, who served in Vietnam between 1966 and 1970. “I want these guys who served to be remembered. That’s the most important thing.”
As friends and fellow veterans passed Goshea, teasing him with grins, he described a feeling of “camaraderie.”
“It doesn’t matter which branch you were in, we’re all part of a brotherhood,” Goshea said.
For Vietnam War veteran and VFW member Greg Hancock, the flagging of the graves “[reminds] people that freedom isn’t free, and those that served wrote a blank check to the government for their life.” For the past several years, Hancock has traveled from Florida to Whately for the week of commemoration.
Frontier junior Anika Peura said the conversation with Hancock turned history lectures from the classroom into tangible realities.
“It’s important to hear people’s stories and learn from real people,” Peura said.
The flagging reminded Frontier junior Brady Stone of the message at the heart of Memorial Day, beyond the family barbecues.
“People need to understand why we celebrate the holiday,” Stone said, American flags in hand.
