Smitty Pignatelli watches as Vincent Magnano of Hill Engineering, left, Congressman Richie Neal, Brig. Gen. John Driscoll and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll cut the ribbon on the Gold Star Memorial.
The dedication took place on a closed off section of Walker Street on Saturday.
The memorial was made possible by the efforts of Pignatelli, the Gold Star Committee, and $175,000 in donations.
Rabbi Barbara Cohen and Msgr. John Bonzagni offer prayers.
Pignatelli speaks to the crowd.
The lieutenant governor places a flag.
Gen. Driscoll salutes.
Congressman Neal recalls Lincoln's words seeking to unite a fractured country.
Allyce Najimy, right, is recognized for her poetry.
The Lenox Fire Department standing at attention.
Michael Fabrizio, a Nashville musician and Richmond native, performs at the dedication.
Clockwise from left: Gold Star flag, Rabbi Barbara Cohen, Gen. Driscoll, committee member Brig. Gen. Marie T. Field, VFW color guard.
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, daughter of a career Navy veteran, speaks at the memorial dedication. Her son, Nicholas, enlisted in the Massachusetts National Guard this month.
LENOX, Mass. — William "Smitty" Pignatelli was visiting the Veterans Memorial Bicentennial Park in Fall River with its tributes ranging from the Revolution to the War on Terror when a particular monument caught his attention.
"It was a Gold Star Family Memorial," Pignatelli told the hundreds gathered outside Town Hall on Saturday. "I had never seen one before in my life, and I said, we need to bring one to Berkshire County."
The county agreed: the $175,000 goal was met in a matter of months in partnership with the Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires. Donations came in from businesses, organizations and individuals from across the county and the state, and even from New Hampshire, New York City and Phoenix.
On Saturday, the former state representative was joined by Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, state and local officials and military personnel to cut the ribbon on the monument, which sits at the corner of Town Hall, across the Egleston-Paterson Revolutionary monument. It is only the second Gold Star monument in the state.
"We purposely had the side panels at a slight angle. I view that as the Gold Star families are in the middle and the arms are the Berkshires reaching out to embrace you, to say thank you," said Pignatelli. "I always feel that when a soldier dies, we have very special funerals. We name bridges or highways or parks or put their names on a plaque, but then when the funeral is over, the families go home. I hope you look at this place as a very solemn place, that your Berkshire family and friends support you and love you very much."
Some 80 Gold Star families attended the event; they'd lost family members in conflicts from World War I to Afghanistan.
Jacqueline Roulier Haddad of Adams was among the family members presented with yellow roses and a small gold star flag. She'd lost her brother Marine Lance Cpl. Russell R. Roulier in Vietnam.
Roulier was only 20 years old when he was killed on patrol in Quang Nam on June 21, 1967. The graduate of the former St. Joseph's High School in North Adams was the first Adams resident lost in the war; two more would follow, John Hartlage III and Robert Goyette.
"It means a lot that people are remembering," Haddad said. "When I think about how many people have died in wars, it's just heartbreaking."
She was in high school when her brother was killed, and he was the only boy in the family. Her mother, Phyllis St. Cyr Roulier, was a member of the Gold Star Mothers, a group established in 1928 for mothers who had lost sons and daughters fighting for America in World War I. President Woodrow Wilson had suggested the gold star for use on mourning armbands and on the service flags families had hung in their windows.
The Berkshire County Gold Star Memorial recognizes the 600 families who lost loved ones to conflicts since World War I. Pignatelli had started the task by visiting every community to document names from plaques and memorials and then worked with veterans agents and volunteers to cross reference names.
"You think of the Berkshires as a small, quaint, little place, towns of 400 people to a city of 40,000 people, but 600 families sacrificed a loved one for our freedoms," he said, calling out the members of the memorial committee and others who helped realize the monument.
Driscoll reminded the gathering that Massachusetts celebration of the nation's founding is a year ahead of the rest of the country and started on a town common in Lexington in April 1775.
"They were average, ordinary individuals, farmers and shopkeepers and laborers who decided they didn't want to be subjects. They wanted to be citizens," she said. "They were fighting for something they never could have imagined at the time — democratic principles, fundamental freedoms, self-governance. They didn't know where it would end, but they believed in the power of collective action for that to happen. ...
"And it does take individuals coming together, whether it's the formation of a memorial and a monument or the formation of a country."
A Navy brat, Driscoll said she knew from experience that "you don't serve alone ... A whole family makes that commitment with you."
"People who serve understand that we are a nation founded on the idea of freedom, and will continue to honor those who stand up for those values every single day, and most assuredly, our Gold Star families whose loved ones have made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of this nation," said Driscoll.
Congressman Neal pointed to the students from Project 351, a leadership and civics program for eighth-graders, who were helping with the event.
"You can't ask young people to love something they don't know anything about. And democracy is worth the investment," he said, to applause. "I call attention to that because their sacrifice for these families, it was about the defense of our institutions, not the defense of our personalities that govern, there's always going to be another election, understandably so ...
"Our first amendment guarantees a second opinion, and they defended that principle. They were Democrats, they were Republicans, they were libertarians, they may well have been socialists. Who knows? Nobody asked."
Retired Army National Guard Brig. Gen. John J. Driscoll said no one in uniform could serve this nation without the support of their loved ones.
"This day, as with any birthday, holiday, is an acute reminder that your loved one is not here, and provides a solemn reminder that, again, freedom is not free," he said. "Standing in front of this beautiful monument, my first thought is one of remembrance and gratitude, remembering all those who died in service to our nation, and so grateful to cherish the freedoms they gave us."
Like other speakers, the general referred to the current political divisiveness, but said he had faith in the nationa and its citizens because as Winston Churchill once said, "America will always do the right thing after it's tried everything else."
"This yearning for freedom is part of human nature. In the age of AI and advanced technology, it is still the citizen who places the country above self and this place courage and character to raise their right hand and step forward to defend our American way of life," Driscoll said. "It is with this sense of purpose we come to remember those who made the utmost devotion to duty and the sacrifices of their families."
Both Driscolls (not related), Neal and Vincent Magnano, vice president of Hill Engineering, cut the ribbon held by two Project 351 students while two other students unveiled the monument. Members of the Gold Star Committee, Neal, the lieutenant governor and the general placed American flags in holders representing eight conflicts during which a Berkshire County resident had fallen.
Race Keator led Pledge of Allegiance; the Adams-Budz VFW Post 8183 of Housatonic was the color guard; Rabbi Barbara Cohen and Msgr. John Bonzagni offered prayers; Charlie Keator read a poem by Allcye Najimy that was included in the program; Jeffrey Stevens performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" and taps on his trumpet; and musician Michael Fabrizio played several selections, closing with the Zach Brown Band's "Chicken Fried."
The members of the Gold Star Committee are retired Mass Air National Guard Brig. Gen. Marie T. Field, Richard Fuore (Gold Star Korea), Robert Coakley (Gold Star Vietnam and Afghanistan), Pignatelli and the late Alan North (Gold Star World War II and a Vietnam veteran).
In closing, Pignatelli recalled how his nickname was for his father's best friend, William Smith, who was killed in World War II. His dad never knew where his friend was buried. It took years for Pignatelli to track down Smith's grave in Milton, and brought his 82-year-old father there "just to touch Smitty's headstone."
"I saw a tremendous weight lifted off of my father's shoulders after 62 years," Pignatelli said. "He said something to us on the way home that has stuck with me ever since, 'even after 62 years, the wound was not fresh, but the pain was still there.' ...
"I'm a firm believer that when we say their names, when we tell their stories of our fallen Berkshire heroes, they live forever. And that's what we have to do here, today and tomorrow and for the next 100 years, as long as this memorial stays."
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