BRATTLEBORO — The annual Memorial Day service on the Brattleboro Common on Monday morning took on an extra bit of poignancy with the news that a Marine Corps veteran had died earlier in the day during ceremonies at St. Michael's Parish Cemetery.
It was up to Richard Hodgdon, commandant of Brattleboro Detachment 798 of the Marine Corps League, to break the news at the conclusion of the service that Roger B. Aquadro, 77, of Dummerston, a member of the League's honor guard, had collapsed and died shortly after 11 a.m. at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.
“A fine man and fine Marine,” said Hodgdon.
Herb Meyer of Guilford, head of American Legion Post 5/VFW Post 1034 Joint Memorial Unit, said Tuesday that his group was marching behind the Marine Corps League color guard when he saw that someone had collapsed.
Meyer said a Brattleboro police officer who was at the cemetery gave Aquadro CPR until a Rescue Inc. ambulance arrived to transport him to the BMH emergency room.
Aquadro was doing what the local veterans organizations do on the morning of every Memorial Day - make the rounds of the Brattleboro cemeteries and conduct a brief memorial service, complete with a 21-gun salute and the playing of “Taps,” for the veterans buried there.
Word of Aquadro's collapse spread quietly through the crowd on Monday as the Memorial Day ceremonies began on the common.
The featured speaker was Helen Manning of Vernon, a senior at Brattleboro Union High School.
“We gather here ever year to honor those who died for our country,” she said. “Each time we gather it will always be for the same reasons: to pay our respects to the fallen soldiers, [to] remember their lives and service; we gather because it is the right thing to do.”
Manning went on to cite peace and liberty as the intangible goals men and women have fought and continue to fight for during her call to mindfulness, drawing on the words of John F. Kennedy to drive her point home.
Manning said after the ceremony that she had gotten the opportunity to speak through one of her BUHS teachers. Memorial Day had always been important in her family, she said, because her father and grandfather had both served in the Army and she was happy to continue the tradition.
American Legion Post 5 commander Richard Guthrie said he was pleased to have Manning as a speaker at this year's services. Legion members have been going to area schools to teach students about patriotism and honoring the sacrifices made by our nation's veterans.
“It brings a tear to my eye to see kids in school with their hands on their hearts still reciting the Pledge of Allegiance,” Gutherie said.
Legacy of service
Aquadro, who served in the Marine Corps from 1953 to 1956, we worked at the Book Press in Brattleboro for many years.
But his main passion was education. He served on the Brattleboro Union High School Board in the 1980s and 1990s, and at the time of his death, was a member of the Dummerston School Board.
Don Webster of Brattleboro, who served with Aquadro on the BUHS Board in the 1980s, remembers Aquadro as “a down-to-earth guy whose life was devoted to public education.”
“He could be critical and have strong opinions,” Webster continued, “but his primary concern was always about what we as a board could do to make the schools better for the kids and the teachers.”
Webster said Aquadro was quite proud that his daughter, Janel, went into education and works as a teacher in Connecticut. Aquadro is also survived by a son, Dana, who lives in Dummerston.
Aquadro's wife of 41 years, Joy, died in 2006 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.
At press time, funeral arrangements for Roger Aquadro were incomplete.