Around Town

‘So Many Ways To Stay Connected’: New Canaan Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony [PHOTOS]

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New Canaan’s Jim Talbot arrived in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, a major campaign of the war that launched in early 1968 and involved a series surprise attacks. A Maine native who had gone on to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, U.S. Army Capt. Talbot by that time had undergone airborne and Ranger training, and spent one year stationed in West Germany. In six months as battery commander, Talbot saw four killed and 40 wounded in his towed artillery unit. “When you ask a veteran about Memorial Day, faces flash in front of us,” Talbot said from a podium outside the north entrance of Town Hall following a re-routed Memorial Day parade. “Memories of relatives in more distant wars arise from the fog of time.

Around Town

PHOTOS: New Canaanites Gather at God’s Acre, Town Hall To Honor U.S. Military Veterans

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More than 200 people, many in uniform, gathered at God’s Acre a crisp, sunny morning Friday for New Canaan’s Veterans Day ceremony. Led by VFW Post 653 Commander Peter Langenus, a U.S. Army captain in Vietnam who also served as a colonel during Operation Desert Storm, the ceremony included remarks from Desert Storm veteran and Saxe Middle School educator Christopher Cogswell as well as First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Lisa Melland, regent of the Hannah Benedict Carter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, presentation of the flag by the New Canaan Police Department Color Guard, a tolling of the bells in First Congregational Church by Linda Avgerinos and a reading of the poem “In Flanders Field” as well as the names of New Canaan veterans who have passed in the past year (full list below). Cogswell, a third-generation New Canaanite and ’86 NCHS grad who works as a special needs assistant and recess supervisor, in his remarks opened a discussion about what he called “two words that are a common virtue in all of us, ‘uncommon valor.’ ”

“The meaning of these words usually starts with an oath or a pledge: ‘I do solemnly swear,’ or ‘on my honor,’ ” Cogswell said, standing at a podium in front of the Wayside Cross, a monument to World War I veterans that was erected in 1923 at the foot of God’s Acre. “In combat I learned that uncommon valor was a common virtue. Real heroes are the quiet men and women of action and duty.

News

Letter: Vote ‘No’ To Removing 1st Selectman as Board of Finance Chair

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Dear Editor:

There’s an old military axiom that says “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

For the past 50 plus years our Board of Finance has been led by our elected first selectman who serves as ex officio chair. Some want to change that. The entire 12 members of the Board of Finance do not want to change that. The three members of our Board of Selectman do not want to change that. Half of the members of our Town Council do not want to change that.

Around Town

‘There’s Not Enough Being Done’: New Canaan Scout, 15, Oversees Cleaning of Veterans’ Gravestones at Lakeview Cemetery

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Elliott Ruoff, a 15-year-old soon-to-be sophomore at New Canaan High School, wanted to do something special for veterans for his Eagle Scout project. Standing near one veteran’s marker on a recent, hot and humid morning at Lakeview Cemetery, Ruoff gave his reasons for taking on the cleaning all of the veterans’ gravestones there. “There’s not enough being done to help them, in my opinion,” Ruoff said. “One of the main problems with this is that when we’re trying to find the stones, we can never find them because some of them are just so dirty that they’re unreadable.”

There are about 900 veterans buried in Lakeview Cemetery, according to Ruoff. Troop 70, the Boy Scouts troop to which he belongs, is responsible for marking those veterans’ stones with U.S. flags for Memorial Day and wreaths for Christmas every year.

Around Town

VIDEO, PHOTOS: Hundreds Gather in Downtown New Canaan for Re-Routed Memorial Day Parade, Annual Ceremony

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Memorial Day Parade 2016
Uploaded by Michael Dinan on 2016-05-30. A person’s sense of accountability defines him or her, hard work and mastery of complex things is a virtue, be a professional and war is not glorious, though those who fight beside one another are—these are the four great lessons that William Ruoff carries with him on knowing, observing and serving with U.S. Armed Forces veterans. As a midshipman first-class in his senior year at the U.S. Naval Academy, the New Canaan resident recalled Monday, he applied for consideration to make submarines his warfare specialty following graduation. “To enter that specialty, I first had to interview with Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, the director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program and father of the modern nuclear submarine force,” Ruoff told the crowd of locals gathered outside the northern entrance to Town Hall following an abbreviated Memorial Day Parade downtown.