"I am proud of this country," said Henry Moore, 88, one of the Tuskegee Airmen, the African American Army Air Corps flier squadron that fought with distinction despite segregation during World War II. He was part of the Media parade that rolled down State Street to thunderous drums and martial music under endlessly bright skies.
"When I joined the Airmen, I thought that one day we would live up to our ideal as a country," said Moore, a former staff sergeant. "These days, after electing Barack Obama president, we are getting closer to that ideal."
Never far from people's minds were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, making ceremonies all the more poignant.
"I've got two sons on active duty," said Vietnam War veteran George Brosnan, 62, a member of the Media Veterans of Foreign Wars, standing in uniform beneath a six-story flagpole with the Stars and Stripes flapping above.
"I put one boy on a plane to Afghanistan yesterday, his third tour of duty," Brosnan said. "This is a tough year, with extra worry. Both my boys are gone, and I know what they're facing, since I've been there and done that."
The Media ceremonies had an added element of sadness as people remembered neighbor and Phillies announcer Harry Kalas, a veteran and staple of the local parade who died last month.
But Memorial Day is also an opportunity to gather a community to honor and celebrate those who have served. And a better venue could hardly be picked than Lumberton, home to what organizers say is the oldest continuously running Memorial Day parade in New Jersey. The first was in 1885.
Marching bands, civic groups, and schoolchildren donned hometown pride and paraded down Lumberton's quaint Main Street. Members of the Rancocas Valley boys' lacrosse team threw candy at smiling folks along the parade route, many of them holding little American flags.
