4.27.2023 Desert Storm/Gulf War Memorial Ceremony

morning I'd like to bring up Reverend Ed Bailey to give us the opening prayer please I know I'm gonna do it it's a habit it's a respect thing you know he got promoted I did yes I did please uncover stand and uncover please

father we come to you today ask your blessings upon us event that we're about to take to give tribute to our brothers our fallen Brothers to give tribute to the Fallen I'm sorry to Star golden star families father we ask that each and everyone here today remember our brothers in prayer at all times we ask that you keep us healthy father and bless this day amen amen thank you so much you're welcome

if we could please post the colors

I invite you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so much

guys from the lantern please

through the prayers who saved us all the land of the free and the Lord thank you so much if you guys would please be seated I'd like to bring up mayor Coogan to give greetings from the city it's always a very solemn and somber day when we honor people to pay the ultimate sacrifice for this country um all wars that have been fought and won by the United States of America have

made us all safer and have a more sound secure place to live it's very very important that we don't ever forget the people that went before us to do these kind of tremendous jobs to save this country it's a privilege to come out on these events I know we're going to be hitting a whole bunch of them and I'll try to hit every single one I appreciate you coming out today it's such a

gorgeous day I also want to acknowledge one of uh my partners in government that's here with with me a strong strong strong strong advocate of all veterans um services and all veterans period Linda Pereira she joined us today that's very nice and all the guys here again so I'm sure we'll be seeing each other over the next few days and again thanks for coming out today thank you thank you mayor Kruger

can we get the gold star families to please come up here and present the wreath

good

detail

all right thank you guys oh yeah thank you thank you

I just want to welcome you all to the Turner park services today when I looked up the information about this park it isn't lost on me that we have we call this the Desert Storm Gulf War ceremony however we really should just call this the neighborhood ceremony because the young people who gave the ultimate sacrifice are from the multiple Generations in this area right here so um I think it it shouldn't be lost on

anybody yes we're here to honor the gulf store uh and Desert Storm veterans but we do also have a Vietnam veteran here as well so um let that not be lost on all of us and thank you everybody for coming today it's always an honor to have these kinds of Ceremonies and be able to reflect on the service of our military members we do a lot of Ceremonies like this and

I was talking to Mr Tavares a little while ago you think that these ceremonies happen so frequently that they lose a little bit of something but he's here today and he had surgery just the other day if ever there is an example of how much these ceremonies mean to the families that truly is he's in a rehab hospital right now and they brought him down here specifically for this it it really

impacted to me how much these events mean to the families so thank you so much for being here um I'd like to call up Sheila Holleran and she's going to give us a little bit of the history of this park my name is Sheila Holloman and I grew up in Harbor Terrace it was a project right down the street there it's been replaced by another smaller complex and um habachavis opened its doors in 1941

okay Haba Chavez opened its doors in 1941 and it was for veterans that came home from the war so that their families could have a place to live um prior to it deteriorating uh there were no stigmas attached to the housing projects and hundreds of families lived there over the four and a half decades that it stood there and tuna Park and all the surrounding streets here were all part of its tight-knit community and

it was a safe place to live neighbors help Neighbors neighbors cared for each other and it was in an integral part of our childhood memories and so when we heard that they were knocking Harper chefs down a group of us got together and we formed a committee to have our first Harbor Terrace and neighborhood reunion and um with a lot of hard work trying to find over 40 years of families we made it

happen and in 1989 at whites of Westport over 500 more close to 500 people attended our very first reunion and they came from all over they came from California they came from Alabama they came from Texas uh Etc many other places and because it was such a success we ended up having four more reunions over the next 20-year period and then we were approached to have a memorial for two of our own that died in

two different Wars and and that was Navy firemen Charles A Tavares and Russell G Smith Jr Sergeant First Class who died in the Iraq War so I think at the time and I think still now to this day there is no memorial for either war in the city so what we did was all the money that we had left over from our five reunions we got together with the city of Fall

River its Park Department its Veterans office and we made it happen so in 1989 and now in 2012 we had a memorial dedication right here for our two Heroes that lived in this area and I just want to you know thank everyone that's here and I want to thank especially the gold star families and the veterans agent Michelle Hamilton and her staff for helping us honor our two friends from the neighborhood that we grew up

with and I just want to say one word about Charlie he was my friend I lived with him in Harbor Terrace I used to go over his house and and and listen to Elvis music with him I hung around with his sister Joyce I knew Bobby and the whole family Russell Smith lived right in this house here so yeah again thank you for for coming here today and honoring these two Heroes of ours

our next honored speaker is Mr Robert Tavares thank you Michelle thank you all right a little rough goal today but we're doing it I wouldn't miss this for all the money in the world so so I wouldn't miss this for all the money in the world I had some serious back surgery and I'm just trying to recover now but um so just a couple of things that real quickly I want to thank everybody for

coming out I have some special friends of mine that are here that I personally want to thank some dear friends uh where's Lou where's where's Lupo Chico Lou thank you for coming attorney Sada thank you for coming Linda all the other City officials mayor Coogan um but anyway um like I said I wouldn't miss this for the wheel Shield he did a great job this uh this oh I'm sorry this this uh

reunion committee and this dedication means a lot to a lot of us we uh we did do it for the last couple of years during the covet it wasn't a big thing but we we still managed to do it Linda I think you'll remember we were here yeah so somebody mentioned to me this morning we didn't do it for two years I said yeah we did we did do it but it just

wasn't a whole lot of people um because of the covet you know so we're going to continue to do it every year thanks to our city um they really help out in this matter a lot so uh once again I want to thank everybody for coming it means a lot to me believe me thank you Kenny thank you for coming by the way

sure you might notice from the programs I gave Ed Bailey a promotion calling him Reverend um Ed Bailey's going to come up and sing God Bless America for us

thank you for clarifying that I didn't want any trouble thank you

please sing along with me God Bless America

stand beside her and guide her through the light with the knife from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with more God Bless America my home sweet home God Bless America I hope sweet home thank you so much for that my pleasure right now Vietnam Veterans of America number 207 will give us a 21 gun salute

thank you

thank you

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River Honor Guard police Honor Guard retire the colors right forward

we now have Reverend Andrew Stinson who's going to give us our closing prayer I invite you to join me in prayer everlasting God thank you that your ear is always leaning toward us hear the prayers and petitions for the service members who served in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm those from our city and those from this neighborhood and from this very place who gave High service and great sacrifice

give them clear minds and peaceful Hearts as they as you bless them for their service of this nation may your Divine love spread throughout their soul saturating their whole being that they may be made whole in your likeness strengthen them and us that through your Limitless mercy and Grace we may be encouraged by their service and sacrifice blessing and Glory wisdom and Thanksgiving honor and strength be to

those who dwell with you in the living out of your declaration that no greater love has a man than to lay down his life for his friends send us forth with your blessing that we may see in these great Deeds your call for our own greatness as well through the name of all that is Holy we pray amen to a place to reach the dog