In the News

Donna Fiorentino of Wilbraham looked around Massachusetts Veterans Memorial Cemetery on Monday, at rows of white headstones standing at attention with military precision.

“I just feel a sense of peace here,” she said. “You have to come and visit loved ones, especially today.”

She and her husband, Jim, pointed out the graves of family and friends. He’s an Army veteran, having served from 1971 to 1973.

“We’ll be here, too, someday,” he said.

Brooke-Ann Shlosser of Ware knelt at the grave of her father, William Burnett, an Air Force veteran of the Korean War.

“I cry every time I come here,” she said.

Visitors gathered Monday for formal remarks, which were moved this year into the cemetery’s chapel because of intermittent rain. Patriotic songs on the bell carillon mixed with the sounds of the rides at nearby Six Flags New England.

At the ceremony, Agawam Mayor Christopher Johnson reminded visitors of the remarkable story of farmer Edward Squazza.

Squazza donated the land for the cemetery as a way of giving back to veterans, frustrated that his work on the farm kept him out of World War II. He died in 2008. The cemetery opened in 2001.

Today, Massachusetts Veterans Memorial Cemetery has more than 14,000 graves, with about 7,000 of them belonging to veterans.

“You honor us with your presence today, and with the memories of your loved one that you carry with you in your heart,” said Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll.

Driscoll spoke of service and sacrifice, and of her father, Fred Lord, a Navy veteran with 23 years of service who died in February.

She spoke of the state’s HERO act, a comprehensive list of policy reforms and spending for veterans, which she expects to pass the Legislature as soon as this week. She also highlighted a $20 million state campaign to end homelessness among veterans.

Last week, the Massachusetts Senate passed two amendments brought forth by state Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield, a veteran of two tours in Afghanistan and chairman of the state Veterans Services Committee. Velis is a major in the Massachusetts Army National Guard.

One amendment would add $500,000 to the Home Base program operated by Massachusetts General Hospital, expanding veteran services across the state. The other amendment would expand outreach to women veterans; that legislation came after a scathing 2022 audit finding that the state had identified only 6% of the over 25,000 women veterans living in Massachusetts.

In his remarks, Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno made sure to recognize 100-year-old Miriam Silverman, a Navy veteran and fixture of military events. Silverman served in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy.

She knew of things, her family said Monday, that she was unable to reveal for more than 70 years, once they were no longer classified.

Massachusetts Secretary of Veterans Services Dr. Jon Santiago was one of several speakers who referenced the life of Abraham Lincoln. For Santiago, a major in the Army Reserves, the touchstone is Lincoln’s famous Bixby letter. The emancipator wrote it to widow Lydia Parker Bixby of Boston, who’d lost five sons in the Civil War.

“I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming,” Lincoln wrote.” But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.”

U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, spoke of looking out from his office or of strolling past the spot on the Capitol steps where Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address.

In it, Lincoln described his plans for healing a divided nation.

“With malice toward none with charity for all ...,” Lincoln said.

Neal noted: “I call attention to that, because of the fact that today, even the smallest conflicts of American life seem to rise to the largest and highest volume in the difference of opinion. Think of what happened at that time, and Lincoln said, ‘We need to appeal to the better angels of our nature.’”

“And that is part of what we honor here today,” Neal said.