Auburn residents who served remembered with new war memorials

PHOTO: Lt. Col. Paul Bosse, of Auburn, was the keynote speaker at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Auburn on Memorial Day. Behind Bosse are two new memorial stones bordering the site’s original granite centerpiece. The new stones, unveiled May 27, recognized Auburn residents who fought in wars after Vietnam. (Bill Van Tassel photo)

By Bill Van Tassel
AUBURN — Two new memorial stones were added to the veterans’ remembrance area in Mount Auburn Cemetery on May 27.
The stones are dedicated to those who served in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, and the Cold War and are added to the memorial that commemorates Auburn residents who served from the Revolution through Vietnam.
The ceremony, held the Friday before Memorial Day, included a convocation by Auburn Police Department Chaplain Roger Cousineau and remarks by Gov. Janet Mills and Mayor Jason Levesque, letters from representatives of U.S. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine 2nd District, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Attending were veterans, police and fire personnel, city officials and area residents. Addison Avery sang national anthem.
Lt. Col. Paul Bosse, of Auburn, was the keynote speaker. Bosse is a combat veteran who served as a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger who served in the Middle East as well as with the 25th Infantry and has held several position in the Maine National Guard.
“Don’t forget each of these deaths was a personal tragedy,” Bosse said of those who died in service. He noted several local members of the armed forces that “some of us had known,” who lost their lives in war. “Understand that the loss was on an individual basis, a personal tragedy for the families.” he said.
Those remembered included Lisbon native Tommie Field, who died in Somalia in 1993 when his Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in Mogadishu. Bosse also noted the substantial number of soldiers that the United States has lost since the Revolutionary War – a number nearly equal to Maine’s current 1.3 million population.
Pvt. S.E. Peterson, Co. A 3rd Maine Volunteer Infantry played Taps to close the ceremony.