27-05-2025
Portland Memorial Day event honors veterans who died in active duty
May 26—At about 2:30 p.m. on Monday, a man's voice rang out through Evergreen Cemetery.
"Where have all the soldiers gone? Long time ago. Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards, every one," he sang, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar as he crooned Peter Paul and Mary's "Where Have all the Flowers Gone."
A group of children dressed in white traipsed through the cemetery with flowers in their arms, which they laid on the graves of fallen soldiers.
This marked the halfway point of a Memorial Day event that began with a parade from Longfellow Elementary School to the cemetery, where speakers took to the stage to honor the seven veterans buried there who died in active duty.
"I don't want these guys to be forgotten, they had hopes and dreams like everyone and they came home in a box," said Bobbi Cope, 70, who organized the event.
Cope, who has lived in Deering Center all her life, remembers a small local parade celebrating Memorial Day in the neighborhood when she was a kid. Her father and uncles were all veterans and she would usually attend with her family.
"I thought, wouldn't it be nice if we had something like that again in Deering Center," she said.
So, in 2013, she decided to organize the Deering Center Memorial Day Procession and Commemoration. She's held the event every year since.
As the kids returned to their seats, the name of each soldier killed in active duty was read out, followed by the chime of a bell. A band played "Amazing Grace" on bagpipes. A group of veterans fired a three-volley salute. A white tent was set up, shading a stage with portraits of the dead soldiers, decorated with wreaths. There was a moment of silence. Those who couldn't fit under the tent were spread out on the grass, sitting in lawn chairs and on picnic blankets. Dogs barked. Babies cried.
In the front row sat David Whitten, 79, who was awarded four Purple Hearts during his service in Vietnam. He held his hand to his chest as the event wound down.
"I'm very impressed and very surprised. I've never seen anybody in Portland proud like this," he said. It was his first time attending the event.
Whitten said when he first returned from Vietnam at age 22, he faced hate for having served in the unpopular war. People spat on him and called him names. At the event on Monday, he was honored for his service.
"This means everything," he said.
Whitten enlisted in the Army after high school and served two tours in Vietnam. He said he watched multiple friends die there and was badly injured in combat. He said that 15 men from his class at Portland High School were killed in Vietnam.
"I don't regret going to Vietnam," he said. "The only thing I really regret is coming home. I wish that some of my friends that died could have come home and I could have died."
Whitten said he struggled after his return from Vietnam 57 years ago. He said he had several suicide attempts and had trouble feeling at home in the years after the war. But a few years ago, when he connected with the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6859, it changed everything.
"That turned my life around, meeting other people who'd been through it," he said.
After the event, a group of VFW members picked Whitten up and took him to the post on Forest Avenue. The parking lot was full. On the deck, someone grilled, and people greeted Whitten like he was an old friend.
Long after the white plastic chairs were folded up and the tent in Evergreen Cemetery was taken down, Whitten sat at the bar, shoulder to shoulder with other veterans on Memorial Day.
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