The Soldiers' Stories: Seeking comfort in memorials to fallen

Jared Raymond's family at his funeral, top, and Jared Raymond, below

Whenever Jaclyn Raymond looks out of her kitchen window at a nearby intersection, she thinks about her son, Jared.

Last week, Swampscott's selectmen voted to name the intersection after Army Specialist Jared Raymond, 20, who was killed Sept. 19 when his tank ran over a roadside bomb in Baghdad. The square will be dedicated on Veterans Day, less than two months after 3,000 people lined the streets of Swampscott to say goodbye to him.

``It will comfort me," Jaclyn Raymond said after learning about the plan for the square at Burrill and Essex streets. ``I go by there probably five times a day. I can picture the plaque up there. I just want to remember my son, and I want everybody else to remember what he's done for our country."

The square is part of a growing list of local memorials for members of the military who have died since Sept. 11, 2001.

In Newburyport, Sue Hines thinks of her son, Derek, every time she drives over a short bridge that leads to Amesbury. Last summer, the bridge was named for Derek S. Hines, who was killed last year in Afghanistan. Hines, a 25-year-old Army Ranger, had been a hockey standout at West Point. As a child, Derek Hines had fished and sailed in the family boat on the waters of the Merrimack River, which flows below the bridge.

``I think the bridge is so good because people who have known us -- they can talk to their kids about Derek," said Hines. ``I cry a lot of the time when I go over it, but it's all part of the healing process. If we talk about Derek, and we never forget him, it helps us to heal. We can't change it."

As a contractor, Kevin Procopio frequently does business at Saugus Town Hall. On the way inside the building, he passes a memorial dedicated to his 20-year-old son, Scott, who was killed on April 2 by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Inside Town Hall, Procopio regularly passes a glass case where his son's picture and Marine medals are on display.

Procopio said the memorial keeps his son's memory -- and death -- fresh in his mind. ``Every time I go by there, I realize that it actually happened," said Procopio. He expressed hope that the memorial will inspire people to make the best of their lives. ``You'd like to think that people would look at it and realize that we're not all here forever, and they need to make their life count."

Read the rest at the Boston Globe

Related Link:
Swampscott soldier killed in Iraq (Jared Raymond)