By Cameron Small
Hometown Weekly Correspondent
After a COVID-mandated two-year hiatus from in-person celebration, the Sherborn community celebrated Veterans Day last Friday.
The programming was well attended, as there was standing room only in the hallway of the second floor of Sherborn Town Hall.
After a welcome from Diana Hoek of the Sherborn Veterans’ Services Office, there was an invocation led by Pastor John Hudson. The Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts presented the colors. As a community, there was a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pine Hill Elementary School chorus sang the National Anthem. Opening remarks were given by Paul DeRensis of the Sherborn Select Board, State Senator Rebecca Rausch, and State Representative David Linsky. Newest Sherborn Veteran Commander Greg Versaw of the United States Coast Guard was the guest keynote speaker. Two essayists –- Lucas Page from Pine Hill Elementary and William Goldman from Dover-Sherborn Regional High –- read their essays on “What Veterans Day Means to Me.” Hoek made closing remarks, and a high school student played taps to close out the event.
Not all Veterans Day ceremonies are the same. Different communities honor their veterans in different ways. The Sherborn community makes it about the community by reminding us that it is not only the veterans to thank and honor, but also the families of veterans.
In his remarks, Commander Versaw said, “All too often, the military family is overlooked as far as the sacrifices that they make, too. I saw firsthand the disruption it causes in the family life when the military member deploys for an extended period of time. Their spouse is left alone to care for the children, to keep the family running, and to do so with the uncertainty of when their spouse is going to return, or even if they are able to come home in the future. For those that do, we ask our husbands, our wives, and our children to pick up everything they have, say goodbye to everyone they know and love, and start over again in some unknown community every few years. I know for myself — my wife and I have lived in ten different homes over our twenty-one year marriage. My older two children would change schools year after year … many times it was without even a ‘thank you’. It just comes with the territory of being in a military family.”
To Commander Versaw, the Sherborn Veterans, and your families: thank you for your service. Thank you for the sacrifices you have made so that we may have the community and way of life that we do. Your service and sacrifices are not lost on us.
