On Memorial Day, rallies seek a different lens on veterans, wars
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'We believe veterans are actually the key to kind of turning the tide on this and so we're using veterans holidays to draw attention to the fact that veterans — who tend to be quite conservative — are not okay with this,' Bryan Winter, a 45-year-old software engineer from Methuen and veterans representative for Mass 50501, the group behind the rally focusing on immigrants' constitutional rights.
'What the Trump administration is doing is so lawless and so dangerous that it just needs to be opposed,' said Winter, who said he is a Republican.
The demonstration against President Trump moved down Tremont Street and to Liberty Mall, as drivers slammed on their car horns in support of the procession. 'No kings, no tyrants, we will not be silenced,' members of the rally chanted.
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One attendee passed around small 'Know Your Rights' wallet cards in English and Spanish. A hodgepodge of hand-crafted signs dotted the crowd. One read 'Make Fascists Extinct' in black permanent marker, while another read 'Veterans Against Trump.'
Mass 50501 has helped organize other rallies in the city, including in April for a
'I feel helpless. I feel like this is a thing I can do that's greater than zero, though it still feels not nearly enough,' said Susanna Brown, a Randolph resident who attended the event.
She lamented that Democrats, while controlling the vast majority of elected offices in Massachusetts, have little control in Washington while Republicans hold both Congress and the White House. 'I feel like in Massachusetts, we're lucky to feel part of a majority, even if it feels like a powerless majority,' she said.
About 40 people gathered in front of Faneuil Hall for a separate event organized by the group Veterans For Peace, meant to spotlight children's deaths amid Israel's 19-month campaign in Gaza. Some waved Palestinian flags. Others wore keffiyehs, traditional black-and-white Palestinian scarves.
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'After every war, children are ignored,' said organizer David Rothauser, a 91-year-old Army veteran who served in the Korean War.
Several swaddled objects representing dead children lay on a folding table in front of the small crowd outside Faneuil. Pictures of children with the captions 'killed by Israeli air strike in Gaza' sat with them on the table. So did a sign that said: 'Your tax dollars at work $$'
'They're collateral damage,' Rothauser said, raising his voice to be heard over nearby performers dancing to the tune of George Michael's 'Careless Whisper.'
Mentions of President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio drew boos, but so did allusions to former President Joe Biden and Governor Maura Healey. Several speakers framed the conflict in Gaza as the latest in a line of wars from which few profit, as the saying goes, but many pay.
'I've been protesting wars since Contra,' said Joe Kebartas, a 76-year-old Vietnam veteran, referring to the Iran-Contra affair, an arms-for-hostages scandal under the Reagan administration. Kebartas, a former Army medic from South Boston, said too few people feel a connection to foreign affairs and the violent conflicts they involve.
'There's too much apathy,' he said.
Members of the local ROTC program participates in the City of Quincy's Memorial Day parade on Monday.
Brett Phelps for The Boston Globe
Organizers scheduled the rallies on a day typically dominated by parades and more traditional events intended to honor fallen U.S. military members.
Governor Maura Healey, for example, appeared in Agawam for a wreath-laying ceremony at the Massachusetts Veterans Memorial Cemetery. Mayor Michelle Wu spoke in West Roxbury at The Gardens Cemetery 57th annual event.
In Quincy, a parade weaved through the city Monday, ending at Mount Wollaston Cemetery as part of a tribute to 'the men and women who have served and sacrificed so much,' according to city officials.
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'On Memorial Day, and every day, may we never take for granted the sacrifices made to secure our freedom,' Healey wrote in a
Several people from this cohort of veterans who attended the Veterans For Peace rally in Boston said they're frustrated to see what they view as the same problems cycling over and over.
The through-lines stretch between Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan, all conflicts that involved American troops, and the war in Gaza, which they see as only possible because of U.S. support and foreign aid.
'It's particularly painful for us to see in the last years of our lives,' said Doug Stuart, an 80-year-old Vietnam vet from Auburndale. What the U.S. needs, he said, is to 'learn how to be at peace.'
Matt Stout can be reached at
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