Gold Star Families monument unveiled at RI Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery

EXETER, R.I. (WPRI) — For Rhode Island Gold Star Households, this Memorial Day was further particular.

Gov. Dan McKee unveiled a model new monument in the course of the forty eighth Annual Memorial Day Commemoration devoted to the households of those that made the final word sacrifice.

The Gold Star Households monument, positioned within the Rhode Island Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery in Exeter, honors households “who sacrificed a beloved one for our freedom.”

“We’re a greater state, a stronger state, because of the service of the women and men who’ve served from our state,” McKee stated. “We’re right here to recollect the troopers who by no means returned residence and to recollect the households who stare at an empty chair on the eating desk.”

Lynn St. Germain-Lundh, whose son Sgt. Brian St. Germain died in 2006 whereas serving his second tour in Iraq, was among the many many Gold Star relations who took half in Monday’s ceremony.

She urged everybody to recollect what Memorial Day is actually about.

“To Gold Star Households, day by day is Memorial Day,” St. German-Lundh stated. “Assist me, assist us, make the definition of Memorial Day imply extra than simply some phrases put down on paper.”

“Once you put up a Gold Star monument, when you might have commemorations like this on the cemetery, you’ll be able to’t assist however really feel that they’re serving to you keep in mind the lack of your family members and people who went earlier than and after them,” she continued.

Subsequent yr, the annual Memorial Day ceremony will happen subsequent to the monument.