This Memorial Day, the students at Valley Regional High School decided to honor lost veterans from very close to home.
The school celebrated the 14 members of their community who died in World War II in a special assembly and invited the families of the lost military men to attend.
Deep River native Althea Robida lost her brother, Eugene Post, decades ago. He was one of the Americans from the Greatest Generation who died in World War II and who Memorial Day is all about.
“It’s a terrible thing, but it’s also a great honor to know that he was fighting for us when all of this happened,” Robida said of her brother who was only 21 when he died on the USS Growler.
This Memorial Day, Althea’s brother is being celebrated by members of the millennial generation from the community he never got to come home to. Students at Valley Regional High School dedicated this year’s Memorial Day assembly to the 14 young men from Deep River who perished in the 1940s conflict.
For decades, 14 trees planted along with a stone bearing the names of the young men who died in World War II lined the driveway to the school, but little more about them was ever said. This year, school leaders wanted to make sure that changed.
“It’s a moment in which we can let our students realize that their hopes and dreams of those soldiers who died in battle live on in our students,” said Donald Perreault, the social studies teacher who coordinated the program.
