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Nesquehoning VFW honors veterans

Why do we serve?

That was the question retired Master Sgt. Walter Breiner answered during Nesquehoning’s Memorial Day parade and ceremony on Monday. The event was hosted by the Nesquehoning Memorial VFW Post 8008.

Breiner, a 20-year veteran who retired on May 4, said that there are many reasons men and women, past and present, choose to serve.

“Some people were forced to. Some are trying to find something greater than themselves. Some do it for the family tradition,” he said. “I feel most do it because it is the right thing to do.”

Breiner, the main speaker for the ceremony, told those in attendance of a fellow veteran, a single mother, who gave her life for our country while serving in Kuwait.

He paused, choking up, while remembering the woman who our country lost.

Breiner urged everyone to take a moment to pause and remember all who gave their lives for this country.

Like Breiner, VFW Auxiliary President Christa Acciarito said that Memorial Day “is a day that should inspire those same feelings of gratefulness. … It is not a day to include “happy” in your greeting to family and friends. It is not a day meant for vacation weekends, blowout sales, or fireworks.

“ Today is a day to come together as we are here, and to give thanks and remember those men and women, many technically still children by definition or scarcely older, who without hesitation gave their lives for our people, for the hope that their children and generations that follow would know a better future than they had.”

The ceremony also included the reading of the deceased veterans over the last year.

Poppy King and Queen Gunner and Bristol White sold poppies.

Members of the Nesquehoning VFW Post 8008 lead the Memorial Day parade down Catawissa Street on Monday morning. For a photo gallery of the event, visit www.tnonline.com. AMY MILLER/TIMES NEWS
Ian Acciarito salutes at the Veterans Memorial on West Catawissa Street.
Nesquehoning Poppy Queen and King Bristol and Gunner White take a moment from selling poppies for a photo.
Members of the Nesquehoning VFW Post 8008 color guard stands during the Memorial Day ceremony.
Main speaker Walter Breiner addresses those in attendance.