With blaring sirens, waving flags and shouts of welcome, Master Sgt. Gerard Thomas and his wife Antonya arrived Friday for their first visit to the Vineyard.
The Marthas’s Vineyard Seacoast Defence Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), sponsored the wreath-laying ceremony in front of the Edgartown courthouse Monday.
A U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs program intended to create better access to health care for veterans in remote locations, including on Martha’s Vineyard, has instead left them angry and frustrated.
At a ceremony Monday, Paul J. Brawley, a commander in the United States Navy Reserve, quoted Gen. Douglas MacArthur: “The soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
Veterans of every American war since World War II, along with members of the Coast Guard, local police departments and other groups, marched in the annual Veterans Day Parade in Oak Bluffs on Tuesday.
Once relatively scare, services for veterans on the Vineyard are expanding in a number of ways. At Community Services a counseling program has long been in place, and a new program began in October on post traumatic stress syndrome. Island vets say they are finding common ground.
Just after 11 a.m. Saturday morning, people emptied out of stores and flooded the streets of Vineyard Haven as the Northeast Navy Marching Band marched down Main street. This Flag Day parade was held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the opening of Veterans Memorial Park.
The past year has been a difficult one for Jared Meader. Caught at the center of some of the most pressing national issues of the day, the two-time Iraq war veteran has had to refinance his Vineyard Haven house to pay off medical bills from a brain tumor, and he now struggles to hold onto a mortgage while battling the psychological scars of combat. All while raising four children. For most people the burden of such a harrowing biography would be too much to bear, but Mr. Meader has the support of a community rallying to his aid.
