By Elizabeth Dubrulle
Correspondent

In cemeteries and parks around the nation, Americans will honor those who fought and died in the country's name at Memorial Day ceremonies on Monday, May 30. Traditionally, those who want to honor America's fallen soldiers and sailors have done so by laying wreaths on graves and monuments, holding parades, flying the U.S. flag at half-staff until noon or participating in the National Moment of Remembrance at 3 p.m.

FOR ALL - Earl Isham, John Graham, Cmdr. Patricia Graham, Arthur Zetes and Larry White of VFW Post 8401 honored American heroes at Bedford's Pre-Memorial Day Parade on Sunday, May 22. (Susan Clark Photo)

The first Memorial Day was proclaimed by Gen. John Logan in General Order No. 11 on May 30, 1868, in recognition of the myriad community tributes that took place at various times during the year to honor the country's Civil War dead. As commander of the Grand Army of the Republic (the largest veterans organization for Union soldiers), Logan ordered flowers placed on the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Gradually, individual states began recognizing Memorial Day, with New York being the first in 1873. All northern states had followed suit by 1890, although the southern states were conspicuously slower to adopt the holiday. After World War I, the meaning of the day was expanded to include all who had died fighting in an American war.

Congress established the last Monday in May as the official date of Memorial Day with the passage of the National Holiday Act in 1971, thereby creating a three-day holiday weekend. Many Memorial Day supporters now criticize the congressional act for demeaning the day as Americans now spend most of the three-day weekend in recreational activities rather than honoring the nation's military. In fact, a movement is afoot to end the three-day holiday and restore Memorial Day to its traditional day of observance, May 30, regardless of what day of the week it falls on.

In this area, towns have planned commemoration ceremonies for Memorial Day, and nearly every community contains some sort of permanent tribute to the residents who have served and died fighting in the American armed forces. Flagpoles, statues, plaques, parks and schools all bear the names of these local heroes. Some of the most prominent are featured here.

Dunbarton
On Dunbarton's town common stands a statue of minuteman Caleb Stark, son of the Revolutionary War hero Gen. John Stark and his wife Molly. Stark was born in this town in 1759 and fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775 when he was just 15 years old. The minutemen had little formal training in military affairs and were primarily farmers and merchants who answered the colonial call-to-arms to stand against the British.

Bunker Hill was the first real test of American strength after the fighting at Concord and Lexington two months earlier had propelled the two sides to war. Composed entirely of militia from New England, the American force of 1,600 men faced down a British force of 2,400 well-trained troops. Although the British eventually captured the American entrenched positions after several bloody assaults, the victory proved an extremely costly one for them. The devastatingly high casualty rate of more than 30 percent prompted British Gen. Henry Clinton to remark that one more such victory would cost them the war.

Stark remained with the army for several more years, being wounded at the Battle of Saratoga, the fight that turned the tide in the Americans. favor in October 1777 and brought the French into the conflict as America's ally. Stark served as his father's adjutant for much of the war and rose to the rank of major.

After the war, Stark returned to Dunbarton, where he became a merchant. He moved to Ohio in 1828 but was buried in Dunbarton after his death 10 years later. The town's memorial was dedicated in 2002, and the statue appears on Dunbarton's seal, a tribute to all of the town's minutemen.

Stark's son, Caleb Jr., another longtime resident of Dunbarton, also served in the army, fighting during the War of 1812. He famously penned a poem after seeing action at the Battle of Lundy's Lane in July 1814 in which he proclaimed, "New Hampshire valor shone conspicuously."

Goffstown
Although Goffstown's two foremost memorials honor veterans of all American conflicts, both were originally created to commemorate those who fought in the Civil War, or as one of the memorials calls it, the War of the Rebellion. In 1909, the town's library was renamed Memorial Library, and a wall in the north reading room was covered with a marble and gold listing of the names of all Goffstown residents who had served in American conflicts, from the French and Indian War of 1756- 1763 to the Civil War a century later. In total, the wall contains nearly 400 names.

Across the street from Memorial Library stands the Soldiers. Monument, which was erected in 1916 on land that had only recently been designated the town common after the large Central Building was torn down. The Soldiers' Monument was dedicated on a cold June day, when Goffstown's dignitaries gathered to deliver speeches, listen to a concert, watch a patriotic parade and enjoy an evening dance. When the town common was refurbished in 1999, bricks were added in front of the monument naming every Goffstown resident who had died in the fighting.

About 200 Goffstown men served during the Civil War, and nearly 30 of them died in the conflict. Among those who fought was Herman J. Eaton, who enlisted in the 11th Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers with many of his friends.

Eaton saw combat in the eastern theater of the war with the Army of the Potomac, mainly in Maryland and Virginia. His descendants recently uncovered a cache of letters he wrote to his family back in Goffstown during the war, recounting his experiences from the initial training to fighting Confederates in the field.

The 23-year-old's accounts of battlefield horrors, or "the fortunes of war" as he called them, retain their vibrancy after nearly 150 years. When writing to his parents in the aftermath of the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, he wrote, "There is no telling the horror of war. I can't begin to tell you anything about it ... The battle raged and not until the stars shone in the sky did it cease. ... I scrambled over the dead and dying... You can sit by the fireside at home and read of our victories but little you know what it was to gain one." Eaton's letters now reside in the Goffstown Historical Society.

Hooksett
Hooksett maintains memorials to its two residents who died overseas during World War II. U.S. Army Private Robert Jacob fought with the 3rd Infantry Division, which was part of Gen. George C. Patton's army during the invasion of Sicily. In October 1943, Jacob's unit participated in the capture of Naples on the Italian Peninsula and the following month was part of the campaign to seize control of the rest of southern Italy from the Germans, who had taken over the defense of Italy after the surrender of the Italians to Allied forces in the summer of 1943. Jacob was killed in heavy fighting on November 28, 1943. Jacob Square in front of the Hooksett Congregational Church is named in his honor.

On the corner of Route 3A and Main Street in Hooksett is a monument to U.S. Army Private Omer Nadeau, a rifleman in the 38th Armored Infantry Brigade. Nadeau's unit arrived in France in August 1944, where it helped liberate the Germanoccupied country before moving on to Holland and Belgium. In December, it participated in the last major European battle of the war, fighting the Germans in the brutal Battle of the Bulge. The 38th crossed the Rhine River into Germany in March 1945 and spent most of April crushing German resistance in the Ruhr Valley.

The 25-year-old Nadeau was reported missing in action on April 15, 1945, as Allied forces fought their way through Germany toward Berlin. A year later, the U.S. Army officially declared him dead and sent a Purple Heart to his family.

Bedford
The Veterans of Foreign Wars maintains a post in Bedford named after the town's fallen soldier in Vietnam, Lance Cpl. Richard K. Harvell, but ironically, the lack of information regarding Harvell's service in Vietnam illustrates exactly what so many veterans organizations have been claiming for years: Not enough is done to remember those who have died in their country's name.

Harvell was a 1965 graduate of Manchester West High School, but when and under what conditions he joined the Marines is unclear. He was killed in the Thua Thien province of South Vietnam on Sept. 29, 1967, just days after his 20th birthday, although his unit number and his movements within Vietnam are unknown. The U.S. Marines did engage in heavy ground fighting throughout this province for much of 1967, a campaign that culminated in the fiercely fought Battle of Hue in January 1968, which was part of the Tet Offensive. Almost certainly, he was killed during this fighting.

Harvell's name is one of more than 58,000 that appears on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. and on the Moving Wall that will be coming to Goffstown in July of this year. The wall, containing the name of every American who died in the Vietnam War, is a powerful tribute to their sacrifice. As Goffstown librarian Sandy Whipple said, "There's a price to pay for our freedoms and these names are it. It's a wonderful opportunity to honor and respect those who are still willing to put their lives on the line for all of us."