Sergeant Gregory A. Belanger was not just a name on a plaque. He was my classmate and teammate, and one of Frontier’s own who later answered the call to serve.

I am a 1999 graduate of Frontier Regional School, a former Frontier football player, and a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. I am writing to ask the Frontier Regional School Committee to reconsider its decision not to transfer Greg’s memorial recognition to the new scoreboard, or to an equally visible and permanent place of honor on the athletic field.

I also write as someone who has seen, firsthand, what it costs when someone does not come home. In November of 2004, I served in Fallujah, Iraq, during Operation Phantom Fury, one of the most intense urban combat operations of the war. I stood beside men of uncommon courage. Some of them did not make it out. I carry their names with me, and I will carry them for the rest of my life.

So when I say I understand what military sacrifice means, I am not speaking in abstractions. That is the weight I bring to this issue, and I want to be precise about what I am asking, because the School Committee’s concern about precedent deserves a direct answer.

This is not a request to name a new fixture after someone or to create a new honor. Greg’s name was not proposed for the first time in 2026. His name was already there. His memorial had already been accepted by the school and the community. The question before the committee was not whether Greg deserved a new honor, but whether an existing honor would be allowed to continue.

The equipment failed. The honor did not. A scoreboard can reach the end of its useful life; a memorial promise should not.

Frontier’s own memorials policy recognizes that school sites should not ordinarily serve as the main venue for permanent memorials unless authorized by the School Committee. Crucially, the same policy states that permanent memorials already in existence before the adoption of the policy can only be removed by a vote of the School Committee.

Greg’s memorial was not created after that policy. It existed for nearly 15 years before the policy was adopted in June of 2018. This is not a request to create a new memorial in conflict with current rules. It is a request to preserve a pre-existing covenant that your own policy explicitly protects.

Greg walked those halls, played on those fields, and wore those school colors. When he was killed in Iraq in August of 2003, this community placed his name on the scoreboard as a visible reminder that the cost of service reaches directly into small towns, locker rooms, and families.

I have stood in places where that cost was paid in full. I know what it looks like, and I know that when a community chooses to honor a fallen son, that remembrance carries a weight that no policy interpretation or equipment replacement should quietly erase. His name on that scoreboard was never about a piece of equipment; it was a promise to future students that they could ask who he was and find the answer right in front of them.

That visibility matters because remembrance is a responsibility carried by the living. Greg gave up his tomorrows so that others could have theirs. We do not remember fallen service members because their names are convenient to maintain; we remember them because their sacrifice places a solemn duty on us to keep faith with the promises our communities have already made.

Frontier should place this matter back on the agenda. Whether by transferring the existing plaque to the new scoreboard or by establishing a permanent, prominent monument at the athletic field, the committee must ensure Greg’s name remains visible for future generations.

The equipment has been replaced. The honor must remain.

Justin Green lives in Huntington.