STRATHAM’S SHAME!!!
I remember
growing up in Exeter and appreciating the simplicity, beauty and togetherness
of the area; including Stratham.
Stratham was a beautiful rural farming community.
Stratham is between
Exeter (which was its closest shopping area and Portsmouth which was a bigger
shopping area with more hustle and bustle.
In fact if you hadn’t seen someone in awhile just go grocery shopping in
Exeter on a Friday or Saturday night, you’ll find them. Everybody pretty much knew everybody else.
Times have changed
Stratham, looks like Salem, NH, with the auto mile and no central
district. But the one thing that has not
changed much is Stratham Hill Park. Over
the years it has been upgraded and everybody enjoys the Stratham Fair. One of the upgrades is the town has added
their small but meaningful veterans park that was designed and built by Peter
Wiggin. The Wiggin family is probably
the oldest family to still live in Stratham and is so much part of the Town’s
history. Peter’s love for Stratham is
sincere and genuine and he always gives with little takes.
Now the
political governing body in Stratham is refusing to allow the POW Flag to be
flown at their Veterans Park. In fact
one person on a local board referred to the POW flag as a hate flag and
supposedly one of the Selectmen said there was no place for the flag to be
flown in Stratham. This takes me back to
the hippie 60’s where people would smoke a lot of pot and protest the Vietnam
War and those of us who suffered and fought through it. If my theory is correct this proves how bad
long term use of marihuana is on the human brain.
POWs as we refer
to are dead, they know they're dead, I know they're dead and we know they're
dead. This flag honors those bodies yet
to be reclaimed. By not allowing the POW
Flag to be flown where other veterans are honored is absolutely shameful and
not only brings shame to the Selectmen but to the Town itself. I know many of the woerful people in
Stratham who disagree with the anti veteran/pow stance and respect them gratefully.
Let me tell
you a little war story that still bothers me to tell it. I was just 18 yrs old when I was sent to
Korea in 1966. I thought I was lucky
that I didn’t get sent to Vietnam, although all my friends did and because of
my extra infantry training specializing in guerrilla warfare, mostly reconnaissance
and extended patrolling, I ended up north of the Im Jin River at the DMZ with
Company C 1st Bn 38th Inf, 2d Division. On a small scale the war was still being
fought.
Because of
increased infiltration and enemy patrolling into the DMZ and South of the South
tape we were directed to dig defensive positions at the South Tape. That is not easy with little GI shovels. Another kid and I were digging and kept
having to cut through roots of trees, and were tough to cut out. As I was digging I came across what I thought
was a root and I am whacking away and I found it wasn’t a root, it was a boot. I told the kid with me, “hey look I found a
boot”, upon closer inspection I found a decomposed foot in it. We immediately stopped digging and called our
duty officer. What we did was dug into a
mass grave. What we found out later was
they were all Americans, about 85 total that were probably buried by the
Chinese. We knew they were Americans
because they all had their dog tags or enough of them did and the Chinese would
bury our soldiers, sometimes. Up until
then they were MIAs, after 15 yrs or so they were finally able to come home.
The POW/MIA
flag is not just a flag it is a commitment by our country to those who might
never come home. Not just a “thank you
for your service”, but a god bless you and thank you for your suffering. If we cannot show our love, respect and our
gratitude then we, as a country, have lost our way.
THANK YOU
PETER WIGGIN FOR STANDING UP FOR THE LOST SOULS WHO WE CANNOT FORGET!!!
SHAME ON STRATHAM!!!
