Around Memorial Day, families and loved ones of fallen soldiers echoed their gratitude for this time to remember and honor those they’ve lost as the city celebrates the holiday.
“It’s a day I get to say the name Shayne,” said Jody Cabino Cipriano, who’s 19-year-old son Shayne Matthew Cabino was killed in action in Iraq in 2005. “Share the memory of him. And remember so many names of other sons and daughters lost.”
Following a ceremony for the families of fallen soldiers Thursday, Cipriano was one of many people out and around the stunning display of 37,369 flags — one for every Massachusetts soldier lost since the Revolutionary War — planted around the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on the Common.
With Memorial Day approaching, many reflected on the “inspiring” and “moving” nature of spending the holiday in such a historic city.
A wide range of Massachusetts natives said they’d be getting together with family and cooking out, or watching a parade in their area, or other typical holiday fare. But, most of the families and veterans added, they’d be remembering and honoring those they’d lost.
Army vet Billy Allen of Winthrop, who served in Vietnam in 1971, has come to Boston Common for six years to see the thousands of American flags on the Common.
He said his grandson liked the memorial so much last year that he wanted to come again this year. So on Wednesday, the pair traveled downtown to look at the flags.
And he said he told his grandson the flags are more than a picturesque memorial.
“This represents a life. This is a person that gave their life for this country to allow us to have what we have today and the freedom,” Allen said. “Also remember every flag … there’s a family behind it. The families have an effect on that. So just imagine, you know, all the people that gave their lives to have what we have today.”
Over 500 volunteers from all backgrounds and areas of the state came out to set up the flags last week.
“I felt like its my duty to do that,” said Army veteran and Charlestown resident Jose Reyes, planting banners in careful rows in his section of the Common on Wednesday. “It was inside of me. For respect and to honor them.”
For many years, South Boston-volunteer Stephanie Orsini said as she worked alongside Reyes, she just came to remember her husband, a Marine who died in active duty.
“And now I’m here to pay back and help other people pay their respects,” Orsini said. “It’s a massive project to put together something like this. So I’m happy to help and redirect my grief.”
Among all the volunteers working together to create something so striking and important, Reyes added, there’s a kindness that’s “amazing to see.”
“I think that the universal language is kindness,” Reyes said. … “I pray for that unity. And here it is.”
In the midst of the people milling and taking photos with the striking tribute on the Common on Thursday, Cipriano pointed to the picture of her grinning young son she’d attached to one of the flags with the words “This flag has a face, a sweet beautiful wonderful face” scrawled in the corner.
The photo was taken on his graduation day, Jan. 14, 2004, she added, “and that smile was for me.”
