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PUTNAM – The town’s Memorial Day Observance will take on a new approach this year with its parade set to step off on Monday morning and conclude with a memorial program in Rotary Park.
Connecticut Air National Guard fly over will mark the multi-division parade at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, May 31, as it begins its march through downtown Putnam streets from the Grove Street staging area. Its lineup of marchers will include town officials, a National Guard unit, local veteran groups, poppy queens, several civic and fraternal organizations, youth groups and the Putnam High and Middle School Bands.
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Stanley A. Scraba of Putnam, who served more than 20 years with the Connecticut National Guard, has been chosen as this year’s parade marshal. He also will give the keynote address during the Memorial Day program that follows.
Parade planners have shortened its approximately two-mile route by having marchers turn left onto Church Street from Providence Street for disbandment at Bridge Street.
To accommodate older and disabled veterans who cannot march, a decorated flat-bed vehicle will be provided to allow their parade participation. They are asked to meet at the highway department garage on Church Street by 9 a.m. where they will be loaded and ferried to the staging area.
All marching units and onlookers are asked to gather at Rotary Park on Kennedy Drive immediately following the parade for a first-ever Memorial Day Observance program that will feature patriotic musical selections by the combined Putnam school bands, a ceremonial wreath laying with full military honors, and a performance by the Putnam Congregational Church bell ringers.
Besides General Scraba’s keynote address, the program will include remarks from Putnam Mayor Robert Viens and an explanation of why we observe Memorial Day from master of ceremonies and U.S. Air Force Vietnam era veteran Ronald P. Coderre.
The Rotary Park bandstand will be adorned with the five military service banners to be posted during the program’s beginning by members of Mayotte-Viens Post 13, The American Legion’s, newly uniformed ten-member color guard unit.
Earlier in the week local veterans will place American flags at the graves of veterans interred in the St. Mary, Grove Street and Nancy Drive cemeteries. There they will remain until Veterans Day in November.
The traditional wreath laying and military tributes at Putnam’s cemeteries, bridges and monuments will be conducted by a National Guard firing squad, plus officers and color guards from the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, starting at 10 a.m. on May 30. The Putnam Police Department is providing security and escort services for all Memorial Day Observance activities.