November 14, 2024
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Events to honor Veterans Day

BANGOR – Veterans groups will be marching together in this year’s Veterans Day parade, to begin at 10:15 a.m. Friday, Nov. 11, on Wilson Street in Brewer.

Each group will carry a banner – the World War II veterans first, then the Korean War veterans and the Vietnam veterans.

The parade will form at 9:30 a.m. in the Brewer Shopping Center parking lot.

Units will proceed down Wilson Street, across the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge, then down Main Street in Bangor. At the reviewing stand in West Market Square, a brief ceremony will conclude with a three-volley salute and the playing of taps. The parade will continue onto State Street, taking a right on Exchange Street to disband at the Bank of America, former Fleet Bank building.

Just behind the veterans’ group, First Student will bus veterans who are unable to walk the parade route.

Both veterans riding the buses and those walking may leave their automobiles in the parking lot in Brewer or at the Exchange Street parking lot in Bangor. Veterans who park in Bangor may ride First Student buses to Brewer 9:15-9:30 a.m. Friday.

Twenty-five World War II walking sticks have been forwarded to the Cole Land Transportation Museum for veterans not currently on the mailing list. The sticks will be reserved at the parade for the first 25 WWII veterans who sign up at the museum on Perry Road, showing identification as WWII vets. They will be presented to the parade participants in the parking lot at Advanced Auto Parts in Brewer prior to the parade.

On Memorial Day 2006, the museum, with the help of Peavey Manufacturing, will distribute Korean blue walking sticks to 160 Korean War veterans who participate in the Memorial Day Parade. Additional walking sticks will be ordered if more than 160 take part.

BANGOR – The Cole Land Transportation Museum at 405 Perry Road will host an awards ceremony at 1 p.m. Nov. 11 for six area schoolchildren who are winners in the museum’s essay contest, “What Freedom Means to Me After Interviewing a Veteran.”

Those who attend the ceremony will have the best seats for the 2 p.m. concert of patriotic and World War II music by the Bangor Band.

The museum will close for the season at 5 p.m. Veterans Day. Through Nov. 11, World War II veterans who tour the museum will receive a ruptured duck pin commemorating the war.

A ruptured duck pin also will be included with the sale of each red-white-and-blue World War II coffee mug, available to the public as long as they last. The cost of each cup is $8 at the museum or $12 if mailed.

HAMPDEN – The Hampden Veterans Honor Roll monument will be dedicated at its site in front of the Hampden Municipal Building, Route 9, at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 11. The dedication is scheduled to coincide with the exact date and hour that the Armistice for World War I was signed.

The honor roll is in place, but covered by a custom-made tarp in order to build anticipation for its dedication.

The dedication will be a solemn and patriotic event. The local middle and high school band will play a medley of patriotic music. A soloist from Hampden Academy will sing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Local bagpiper Ernest Smith will play “Amazing Grace.”

Speakers for the event will be Deborah Plowman, Richard Milliken and American Legion Post Commander Richard Newcomb. Frank Lucas will give the invocation.

Joanne Coffin, mother of a Hampden Academy graduate who died while on active duty in the U.S. Army, will lay the wreath to officially dedicate the monument in honor of all past and present veterans.

A military honor guard will present the colors and play taps to conclude the dedication. A military fly-over by the Bangor Air National Guard KC-135 tanker will occur at noon.

After the dedication, the group will adjourn to the community room of the municipal building to enjoy several musical pieces honoring all of the war eras. Refreshments will be served and participants may visit with several World War II veterans who will attend the event.

WINTERPORT – The members of Argonne Post 138, American Legion, will hold a ceremony to honor all veterans at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 11, at Winterport Memorial Library on Route 1A. All are welcome.


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