Community Corner

Canton Holds Memorial Day Parade, Ceremony

Canton held its annual Memorial Day parade Monday morning with numerous veterans, officials, the town of Canton Volunteer Fire and EMS Department, church groups, community organizations and many more. 

After the parade, a ceremony was held at Village Cemetery. It featured readings by students, the Canton High School band, prayers, the playing of taps and more. 

Richard Barlow gave the address, which is printed below: 

Memorial Day is a time for remembrance. Fifty years ago I marched in the Canton Town parade as a Boy Scout. Things were simpler then and the march up Main Street to the Cemetery was not as steep. The Second World War was fading from view, the Korean Conflict was over and the troops were home. Vietnam was a small unknown on the horizon soon to consume the nation. World War I was something I was studying in Senior US history class. Back then the students read the same speeches we have heard today. 

Back then after the ceremonies the young children were given flowers and eagerly raced up the hill to place them on the veterans’ graves which had been marked with small American flags. Memorial Day was also Little League baseball games, a family picnic and listening to the live broadcast of the Indy 500 race on the radio while sitting on the front porch as there was no live TV coverage. But most of all Memorial Day, which was celebrated on May 30th was a time to acknowledge our veterans who had come home - I remember my Uncle in his Army uniform which still fit, he was in the color guard – and especially to honor and remember those who had fallen in battle.

Today I join those who worry that the true meaning of Memorial Day has been lost as it has become the official start of summer and a time for super sales at automobile dealerships and the mall which is open. We haven’t totally lost our direction, but the needle in our compass is shaking.

In trying to find a way to refocus on the true meaning of Memorial Day I found it was too easy to slip into that old speech pattern of honor and country. Instead I would like to give you a little background on one of Canton’s last veterans to pay the ultimate sacrifice. His name was Thomas Hepburn Perry.

Thomas was born on June 19, 1942 in Washington DC but grow up in Canton. The family house was on Barbertown Road, near the Cherry Brook School. As a youth he loved the outdoors and spent hours in the woods and nearby Cherry Brook. He was quiet, polite, and somewhat shy.

He was inquisitive and loved to read. His twin sister Margaret says he was wise beyond his years and was known in elementary school as the “walking encyclopedia”. He attended Canton High School where he was a member of the Radio Club, Classics Club, not surprising to those who knew his mother Peg, Chemistry Club, Newspaper and Student Council.  I really don’t remember much about him as he was a senior when I was a freshman. Back then that was a big difference. After high school he attended RPI for a year before moving out west to be with his sister. According to his brother Lans he was the typical young man of that time riding his motorcycle about the country.

He married, had a son and was living in New Mexico. Recognizing that he was eligible for the draft he volunteered so that he could become a medic with the Special Forces. He believed that if the United States was to be involved in other countries that they should be represented by their best. He deployed to South Vietnam in November 1967. He quickly become engaged in his military mission and also helping provide medical services to the local population. In 1968 he was serving as a medic with the US Special Forces Company C. During an engagement at a camp located on the western fringes of Quang Tin Province Specialist Perry was caring for the wounded and assisting in an attempt to establish a defensive perimeter when the decision was made to evacuate the camp. The report of the battle in which the last Special Forces camp on the western frontier of South Vietnam was destroyed is extremely detailed and gruesome. He was assumed to be joining the end of the withdrawal column.

After the survivors had gone about one kilometer it was discovered that he was missing. Attempts to locate him were unsuccessful and he was never found. It was later learned that he had gone back through the napalm fire to assist others. Not surprising to those who knew him. He was never seen again and is still listed today as “missing in action”. In a small pioneer cemetery in the little town of Yamhill Oregon next to the graves of his father and grandfather is a memorial tablet with the name Thomas Hepburn Perry, a son of Canton who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

He joins those other veterans from the Civil War including those soldiers named on the Civil War memorial located behind you who never returned from engagements and prison camps in the South, and twenty five other World War I, WW II, Korean War and Vietnam War Canton veterans who also gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country. At this time I ask that you please join me in reading the names of the World War I, WW II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans listed on Canton’s Veterans Memorial. I am sure that many of those names have not been spoken for many years.  



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