CCB MEDIA PHOTOS
Maddison Spero and Rianna Dawson listen as Joe Gentile of Centerville talks about his service in the Navy in World War II. His wife of 61 years, Mae Gentile sits beside him.
HYANNIS – The veterans told stories that were funny and sad and bittersweet.
The students leaned in and listened.
Students from Barnstable High School spent a morning at Barnstable Senior Center last week for the annual Intergenerational Memorial Day event. The two generations first talk over breakfast and then gather outside for a service that includes the raising of the flag.
Tyler Jones, a junior at Barnstable High School, said he enjoyed hearing the stories of Enrico Diani of West Hyannisport, who served in the US Army from 1968 to 1971 in Vietnam.
He took away from the session “how they lived and what they went through for our freedom, to put us here right now and they’re the reason that we’re here.”
Tyler reflected on Memorial Day. “I think this weekend and today’s just a good day to honor them because I’m really grateful for everything they did.”
It was a history lesson first and foremost, and the students’ social studies and US history teacher, Corey Eno, was there with them too.
Jackie Roycroft and Annie Spence talk with Irwin Feigelman, who served in the Army in the Korean War.
Tyler acknowledged the lesson. “I learned a lot of new stuff. We learn about this in the classroom. We learned about all the wars. But you don’t get to really see it go into real life effect until an event like today where you hear the stories and hear all the stuff that happened.”
Barnstable Director of Senior Services Madeline Noonan said the event, “gives us a wonderful opportunity to bridge together the generations.”
To do it on Memorial Day has special signficance, she said. “I think it’s a really meaningful reminder to the high school students of what these veterans really did go through. Every year the veterans who return recount in vivid detail their experiences. And they will consider themselves the lucky ones because they survived, but they do honor the memory of those they served with who didn’t make it.”
For the students and the staff at the senior center, to hear the stories, some from as far back as World War II, is a limited opportunity, she said.
Mia Surprenant, Olivia Crowley and Taya Berler talk with Al Madden, who shows off his trumpet to a companion, and Minos Gordy (not pictured).
“It really is a window for us at the senior center. We have World War II veterans and there’s very few of them left at this point. So many of them are passing away. There’s only a certain time when we will have this opportunity to bring these generations together.”
The event began with the veterans arrival at the senior center, where they sat one or two to a table. Then the students entered and several sat at each of the eight tables. There were introductions and hand-shaking.
The conversations started slowly but soon the veterans were regaling the students with tales from long years ago.
Noonan said the veterans appreciate the opportunity too. “They really do see it as an honor to be able to share, all these years later to talk about these memories. I think it’s never easy, but I think the importance of this is to pass this on to the generations. It really is a living history,” she said.
Al Madden plays his trumpet during a ceremony at the Inter-Generational Memorial Day event at the Barnstable Senior Center on Thursday, May 21, 2015.
One of the veterans, Albert J. Madden is one of the few local veterans to have served in three wars, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, spending 28 and a half years in all in the service. He spent four years in the Navy from 1944 to 1948, stationed in the South Pacific.
“Sixty-five years after the war ended, I got a medal from the Navy for service in the South Pacific,” he said with a laugh.
He switched to the US Army for his service from 1948 to 1971.
“I never talk about the war,” he said. What Madden does like to talk about is trumpet-playing. He has played since he was four years old and now he is 97.
“I’m probably the oldest one in here,” he said, looking around the room at the other veterans.
Madden said he began his service in the Civilian Conservation Corps when he was 17 years old in 1935 and 1936. When the country joined World War II, he joined the Navy.
“When the war ended, I transferred from the Navy to the Army. I got hurt, so I stayed in,” he said. Madden said he was affected by Agent Orange. “You can’t see it, but I can feel it,” he said.
Madden has played his trumpet at many significant military occasions.
The annual Intergenerational Memorial Day ceremony ends with the raising of the flag outside the Barnstable Senior Center. Minos Gordy and Joe Gentile are in the foreground and Albert Madden stands with a student choir.
In 2010, he was invited to go to Washington, D.C. to play at Arlington National Cemetery to play for the 90th anniversary of the Third Infantry Division. He played Taps and then walked a few steps to the grave of the famous World War II hero Audi Murphy, one of the most decorated American combat veterans of World War II.
“I was so proud to play Taps at his gravesite,” Madden said.
Over the years, Madden said he has played Taps at the gravesides of 3,500 or 3,600 veterans.
He remembers one service in 1948 when the remains of veterans from World War II were being reinterred and he played Taps for 14 burials, one after the other.
“I’d play Taps and then the firing squad would go, ‘Bam, Bam.’ I did it 10 or 12 times,” he said.
Scott Dutra, Veterans Agent for the town of Barnstable, left the students with a message. “You’re going to hear some experiences you’re not going to get in the history books, maybe something that happened 75 years ago. The World War II generation unfortunately is not going to be with us much longer. We have to listen to what they have to say, really just absorb it. Listen to what they have to say and learn from it,” he said.
