Mainers hail nation on Fourth of July

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BANGOR – After a 22-year stint in the Marine Corps, you’d think Steve Sircoin would have had enough of marching.

But for the past seven years, the 77-year-old Rockport man has thrown his wooden walking stick into his black convertible and headed north to join his fellow World War II veterans on the parade route that begins in Brewer.

“One foot in front of the other,” Sircoin said before the start of this year’s Independence Day parade as he and dozens more WWII veterans prepared to walk or ride the 11/2-mile route that ends in downtown Bangor.

Here and elsewhere around the sun-soaked state Sunday, thousands of people lined the streets to take in the Fourth of July festivities, a traditional mix of flag waving, ice cream eating and politicking.

While the politicians, including Gov. John Baldacci and members of Maine’s congressional delegation, drew smiles and a smattering of applause from parade watchers in Bangor, it was Sircoin’s cane-waving contingent that brought the crowd to attention.

Among those on their feet was Jacqi Metcalf.

The Bangor woman wiped away tears as her two granddaughters, 7-year-old Shyann and 4-year-old Sierra, waved their American flags at her feet.

“In those men I see my father’s face and the pride he had for his country,” Metcalf said of her World War II veteran father, who died a year ago March.

“For some of them, it probably takes every ounce of energy they have [to walk the parade route], but they do it,” said Metcalf, who remained on her feet until the two buses carrying less mobile WWII veterans passed.

For Sircoin, who walks a mile every day with his 5-year-old dachshund, Kelly, Sunday’s trek wasn’t so bad – even though part of his right foot is plastic because of an injury he received in Vietnam.

“I want to show the kids that a Marine still looks good,” said a smiling Sircoin, who still fits into his dress uniform from his days of service.

Walking next to Sircoin was Karlton Hatch, a 79-year-old Army infantryman from Machias.

While Hatch acknowledged his uniform “doesn’t quite fit anymore,” walking in the parade has become almost symbolic for the man who was drafted at age 18.

“Anyone who can walk at all is lucky,” said Hatch.

Both men carried their wooden walking sticks decorated with reflective bands for each year the men have walked in the city’s Memorial Day parade. Nearly 2,000 walking sticks have been presented to Maine World War II veterans through a program established in 1998 by Galen Cole, a WWII veteran and founder of the Cole Land Transportation Museum.

While the veterans brought much of the crowd out of their lawn chairs, the parade featured other highlights, including clowns, candy and music. The parade also included a flyover by a KC-135 refueling plane – a noisy tradition that sends children cheering and new parents cringing as their infants sleep.

Elsewhere in the state, the return of a patrol squadron from overseas duty to Brunswick Naval Air Station highlighted a Fourth of July that featured parades, fireworks and one celebration that had people humming.

The bulk of Patrol Squadron 26 returned from a five-month deployment to Sicily aboard a chartered flight at 12:30 p.m., then stepped off the plane and into the arms of several hundred family and friends.

“What better day for them to come home?” said Camille Register, who gathered up her four children – 6-year-old Arrington, 4-year-old Julia Mary, 3-year-old Margeaux and 18-month-old Roddy – to greet their father.

Lt. Rodney Register, a P-3 Orion pilot, savored the moment. “It’s just great to be back with the kids and to be able to be a father to them instead of trying to do it on the phone,” said Register.

A few miles from Brunswick, one of the state’s Independence Day celebrations featured not “76 Trombones” but 1,000 kazoos.

In Bath, a kazoo band buzzed patriotic tunes, and Glenn Flaming handed out plastic kazoos to people along the parade route.

“It’s insanity at its finest,” said Flaming, who drove his 1955 Chevy pickup truck in the parade. Following the truck was a kazoo band wearing donated uniforms from a production of “The Music Man.”

In Eastport, the four-day Fourth festivities combine each year with the town’s Old Home Week, when classes from Shead High School gather for reunions.

That makes for a mix in town through the weekend of both tourists and those with local roots. A Washington County Sheriff’s Department officer estimated the crowd Sunday, as activities on the waterfront built toward the parade finale, at close to 20,000 people.

The Eastport Fourth of July Committee, a nonprofit group of volunteers working independently of the town, considers its festival “the largest Fourth of July festival in the state of Maine.”

The holiday weekend also marked the beginning of the busiest part of the summer tourism season in Maine.

Innkeepers, amusement park managers, charter boat captains and others on the front lines of the tourism industry were optimistic, reporting business levels outpacing what they saw a year ago.

“It’s overwhelming, all the reservations,” said Jo-Anne Lapointe, co-owner of the Beau Rivage Motel in Old Orchard Beach.

Many of the state’s celebrations paid homage to Maine soldiers serving overseas. Maine has one of the nation’s highest deployment rates for National Guard soldiers stationed in Iraq.

For a handful of Mainers, the holiday weekend was expected to be one of the last at home for a while.

The Army was recalling 5,600 recently departed soldiers back to active duty to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. The numbers, still tentative, included 58 from Maine, officials said.

The first letters are expected to arrive in mailboxes Tuesday. Those called up could be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan as early as fall. They will be kept on active duty for 18 months to two years.

Katherine Cassidy of the NEWS staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.