Below is a speech James Sereigo-Wareing, Director of New England Carinf for our Military gave to a group of Marine Veterans in honor of the 231st birthday celebrations of the U.S. Marine Corp.

Patriotism

This week we honor you, our Veterans for your service and sacrifice you have all endured preserving our way of life, our freedoms. Today also marks the 231 birthday of the Marine Corp.

Many of you may know that I started decorating bridges back some 5 years ago after returning from ground zero the week we were attacked.

These patriotic displays were to show pride for our country, to show respect to our men and women serving in our military and to our Veterans. When I saw how our armed services reacted that day in September 2001, I vowed to myself that for the rest of my existence I would come up with ways to pay tribute to our men in women in uniform.

Today I stand before everyone here, our Veterans, with gratitude for all you have done for our country, for our families and for the future of America.

Over time, for many reasons, busy days for working parents, political climates, modern technology of communications, we seem to have lost something very important which is showing respect for our Veterans for all that you have done. Gatherings at Veterans events and parades have dwindled in number of participants and number of spectators.

We need to bring back the days of old where citizens come to honor those who preserved our constitution and protected us for these 231 years.

Growing up, I remember on special days honoring our Veterans we stood in the school yard of our schools reading ‘On Flanders Field’, saluting our flag, singing songs of praise to our country and to our Armed Services. We would sing from the Halls of Montezuma and the American Anthem and many other patriotic poems and songs. Parents would come to the school yard and watch as we honored out military and our country. We would get excited to watch the parade of Veterans march in cadence. I still do.

Today we need to teach our young that same respect we seem to have lost.

An organization I started September of 2004, New England Caring for our Military hopes to do just this.

To date, we have over 8,000 volunteer students across 25 communities as of this week with more members to come. We have sent our more than 4,100 care packages and more than 47,000 get well cards for injured soldiers and thank you letters to our Veterans. Our goal from our organization is to teach our young the importance of paying tribute to those who have defended our country in the past and to those who today are in harms way defending America.


Read cards and poster

Poster-show poster

Below is taken from the poster……
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Dear Veterans,

We want to say thank you for everything that you have done to help our country. We respect and appreciate the freedom and choices you worked to give the U.S.A.

Thank again…sincerely your friends from the 2nd grade at South Lawrence East Elementary School.

all the students from the 2nd grade signed the poster
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We hope to bring back that same feeling I had when I was in school. Honor and pride of country and respect of our Veterans and our current Armed Services.


In closing, I would like to say have a good Veterans Day. It is with honor I stood before you. You are all heroes and I thank you for giving me and my family a good life.

Coming from a family where my dad and step dad were Marines….I have been taught ‘Once a Marine always a Marine’.

I would like to wish those Marines here today a Happy Birthday and would like to thank all the Veterans here.


Semper Fi

James Sereigo-Wareing
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