For the first time, the speaker was not a veteran. Veterans of Foreign Wars 3120 Commander town councilwoman Tracy Luton said the speaker is decided by the VFW and the American Legion 196, and that the groups wanted someone with a different perspective.

“We can stand up here as veterans and we know what we sacrificed,” said Luton, who served as a Navy machinist aboard the U.S.S. Samuel Gompers from 1988 to 1992. “But when you have a civilian that looks from the outside in, it gives them a perspective on what we do and how we give up our day and what we sacrifice for our families.”

Town Supervisor Patti Littlefield was the speaker, and though she has not served in the military, she said several of her family members are represented by the names on the monument in the park.

“Our way of life has been shaped and made possible by those who have served and by those who were lost,” Littlefield said. “They were willing to die for our freedom and our way of life — a debt we truly can never repay.”

Tupper Lake town Supervisor Patti Littlefield speaks at the town’s Memorial Day ceremony Monday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

Littlefield read out the counts of soldiers killed and injured over the course of the country’s history: One million dead and 3 million injured or missing.

“These numbers should truly humble us, as they represent people, individuals who were brothers, husbands, mothers, sisters, sons, friends,” Littlefield said. “Personally, I cannot begin to comprehend the moment when you send your loved one off to war. You watch them disappear out of your line of sight, knowing it may very well be the last time you will see them, hug them, tell them you love them.”

She gave three suggestions for ways people can support veterans any day of the year, including supporting the VFW or AMVETS, befriending a veteran who lives alone and/or meeting with soldiers returning from service.

Jim Ellis, a deacon at the St. Alphonsus Holy Name of Jesus Parish — who served in the Vietnam War as one of the first groups on the ground — led the closing prayer, again saying that veterans and the wars they fought were crucial to the United States’ existence.

“This never would have happened if our land had not been blessed by God, the father almighty, and the holy spirit,” Ellis said. “We pray in the name of Jesus the Lord that it continues. And that our young people present here today will remember, not so much the fact that we have thinning hair, grey locks and our steps are a little uncertain … but for all of us here, I’m sure that I say ‘We love our friends who have given our lives.'”