ALTAMONT — The sun was shining on the village green Saturday afternoon as the war veterans were asked to step forward from the crowd of two hundred.
"Don’t be shy," said James Wilson from the gazebo. "All World War II veterans, come up in front of the podium."

The crowd applauded as the old men, one leaning heavily on a walker, moved to stand in front of the gazebo. Next came the Korean veterans as the clapping continued, then the Vietnam veterans, and the applause grew stronger.

Finally, the soldiers home from the war in Iraq were called up — these were the veterans on whom the ceremony centered. The new veterans had been saluted as they rode down Main Street in a convoy of period military vehicles, part of a parade that included gleaming fire trucks, flag-waving Girl Scouts, and kilt-wearing bagpipers.
"Stand erect and shoulder to shoulder with the one next to you," said Wilson, the Third District patriotism instructor, to the veterans.
Then he turned to the crowd and said, "These are the people that served their country, shoulder to shoulder, for every war we were in."

At the head of the troop of veterans was Rev. Charlene Robbins, a Gold Star Mother. Her son, Staff Sergeant Thomas D. Robbins, raised in Delmar, was killed in Iraq in February of 2004.

On one side of Robbins stood the commander of Altamont’s American Legion Post; on the other side stood the commander of the Boyd Hilton Veterans of Foreign Wars Post.

The trio walked forward to set a wreath of red, white, and blue flowers beneath the American flag at the foot of the village’s war memorial.

Robbins placed a single yellow rose, which she had carried in the parade, at the base of the monument.
As the Schenectady Pipe Band played "Amazing Grace," the two commanders saluted, erect and stock still, while the reverend, the Gold Star Mother, placed her hand over her heart and gazed skyward at the flag.

She wiped tears from her face and, after the song was over and the color guard had fired its salute, she was embraced by the commanders.

Robbins told The Enterprise after the ceremony that she was surviving her son’s death "by believing there is more out in the world than what we see in front of us."
She went on, "We raised our children to believe in what the flag represents." Sgt. Robbins, on his father’s side, had ancestors who had fought since the Revolution, she said, and "on my side since World War II."
She said, "We know the price that’s paid."
Robbins also said of the day’s festivities, "It’s nice to see the public recognition of the courage it takes for these young people to serve."

She is a Spiritualist minister, Robbins said, describing hers as the faith followed by Abraham Lincoln and many of the early suffragists — a faith supportive of democracy, she said.
"There’s an equal opportunity for each of us to turn loss into something beautiful," said Robbins.
"I work with a lot of people who have lost loved ones," she said. "It’s healing for me to be able to give them hope...Our spirit lives forever."

"They’re your kids"

While the parade, the songs, the prayers, the speeches, and the wreath-changing in the village park were all similar in form to ceremonies held over the last few decades, Saturday’s was different in substance. It was emotionally charged because it recognized veterans in an ongoing war.

The idea for the event came from Tim McIntyre, the head of public works in Altamont, and was largely planned by Darlene Stanton, president of the VFW’s Ladies Auxiliary.

Stanton also spearheads a drive to send care packages to local soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Each and every one of the kids on the list," she said of those honored at Saturday's ceremony, "were recipients of the care boxes. They are all from here."
Explaining why the ceremony was so moving, Stanton said afterwards, "It’s because you know the kids. They’re your kids."
The 4-Hers who marched in the parade carried a banner, emphasizing 4 H’s: "Happy to Have our Heroes Home."

One little girl with pigtails rode in an Army tank with a family member, beaming all the way.
Three-year-old Ryan Logan solemnly placed his hand over his heart at the start of the program as Michael Donegan sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." Behind him, standing proud, was his 11-year-old brother, Adam.

Their mother, Charlene Logan, stood beside them, singing the words to the national anthem.
Her husband, Robert Logan, "just got back from Iraq," she said. "He was gone 14 months," she told The Enterprise.

Another difference in the celebration reflected a difference in the war itself. While, in earlier wars, everyone in an enemy nation was treated as an enemy, in this war, soldiers are expected to kill insurgents in Iraq while helping to rebuild destroyed communities.
"So many people are cynical about our young people in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Cindy Pollard, who runs the Home Front Café in Altamont, inviting schoolchildren to learn from the World War II memorabilia and from visiting veterans.
Pollard also said, "We rarely give them credit for the hospitals they’ve built or the schools they’ve built....They deserve to come home to a cheering crowd."

From the mouths of babes

Three children from Berne-Knox-Westerlo read their prize-winning essays. Asked why she wrote her essay, eight-year-old Ashley Feldmann told The Enterprise, "Since I heard some people died in Iraq, I wanted to say sorry to them and good luck to the people still alive."

She said she was nervous about reading to the crowd.
"Do the shoes that we sent fit"" she asked from the podium. A soldier from Berne, Jake Montesano, had said Iraqi children needed shoes, so Berne students had collected shoes and Stanton’s group shipped them over.
Feldmann told the soldiers from the podium, "I’ll make a cake for you. Do you like chocolate or vanilla cake and ice cream""

Jonathan King, the 11-year-old who read his essay next, told The Enterprise beforehand that he was not at all nervous. "I like to write," he said. "As a matter of fact, I’m working on a book about turtles." He explained that he had rescued an ailing turtle from a pet store, nursed it back to health, and then let it go.
"I thought he should be with his family," said King.

He told the crowd that memories from the war in Iraq should be put in a time capsule.
"Now we will hear what the soldiers have to say and then we will hear music for those who have died in the Iraqi war," he said.
The third child to read an essay was nine-year-old Logan Nelson of East Berne. He painted a picture of a grand celebration for returning soldiers — with fireworks and skywriters and "a lot of food."

Before the ceremony started, Nelson told The Enterprise, as he tossed kernels of popcorn into the air, catching them in his mouth, "I wrote we would have a party to honor the soldiers coming back because I like parties and I think they’re coming home from a long way and they deserve it."

"What we had to do"

Michael Breslin, Albany County executive and a Vietnam War veteran, also stressed the importance of being welcomed home, but from a different perspective.
Thirty-seven years ago, he said, he was serving with a company in Vietnam on the Cambodian border. "When I came back, no one really wanted to talk to us," he said. "Nor did we want to talk."
Breslin also spoke about the nature of heroism. "None of us went to give our lives," he said. "We went to do what we had to do. None of us were fearless...."

Breslin said that today’s soldiers are doing the same thing although many of them are older than the Americans who fought in Vietnam and have families and added responsibilities.
"No one can tell us when this all will end," said Breslin, "but no one can question what they have done for their country."
Surveying the scene in the village park, Breslin said that, when he was a little boy, he read Mark Twain who "wrote of places like this" and he looked at the Norman Rockwell paintings on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post that "pictured places like this."
Breslin praised a place "where everyone turns out to express gratitude for things for which we really need to be grateful" and he told the crowd, "I thank you as a community for coming together to join in this moment of Thanksgiving."

Altamont's mayor, James Gaughan, and Guilderland's supervisor, Kenneth Runion, read proclamations recognizing the soldiers, and then, one by one, the soldiers or members of their families were given certificates and applause.

Major Bernadine Colloton, an Army nurse, received certificates for her son and her daughter. Both of them are majors, too.

Kimberly Colloton, an architect, is with the Army Corps of Engineers; she has served in South Korea and Iraq and is returning to Iraq this month. Patrick Colloton is with Special Forces. He received a Purple Heart, his mother told The Enterprise, and is now in Iraq, training Iraqi soldiers.
"He says they’re working very hard to be free. You don’t hear the good," said Bernadine Colloton. She was, herself, stationed in Germany for 14 months. "I was taking care of the [American] soldiers from Iraq," she said.
"I pray every day that the Lord will keep them safe," she said of her children.

During the certificate presentations, a particularly moving moment came when Stanton announced Roger Downing’s name. She said she had known him since childhood and he was leaving the next day for a fourth tour of duty in Iraq. His mother, Carol Krause, and his stepfather, William Krause, accepted his certificate.

A lighter moment came when Eileen Bosworth stood to accept a second certificate. The first, she and her husband, David Bosworth, had accepted on behalf of their son, David. The second was for her future daughter-in-law.
Stanton reported of Mrs. Bosworth, "She said, if anything good came out of this war, it was their impending marriage."

"Need to remember"

Joseph Pullicino, a veteran who received the Purple Heart in Vietnam and was president of the Tri-County Veterans, made the closing speech before the wreath-laying ceremony.
Echoing some of the same sentiments expressed by Breslin, he said, "When we came back from Vietnam, we didn’t have a community to welcome us." The dedication of the monument in Washington, D.C., though, "took those hard feelings away," he said.
Many thought that most of the Vietnam veterans weren’t educated and wouldn’t make much of themselves, said Pullicino, but now they are "in high places all over."
"When you come back, be proud to be a veteran," he said, urging the new veterans to join the VFW or American Legion or other veterans’ groups.
"People need to remember the sacrifices that have been made," he said.

Every day, Pullicino said, he looks on the Internet to see the number of American war casualties. On Saturday, he said, the number of those killed in action in Iraq was 2,046 and the number of wounded in action was well over 15,000.

In Afghanistan, he said, the number killed in action was 246 and the number wounded in action was 567.

The wounds, he said, were terrible and the numbers were staggering.
"Coming back with these injuries...what they’re going to need is people out there fighting for them," said Pullicino. "Work hard so no one forgets what sacrifice you made."
Pullicino concluded, "You don’t see that many yellow ribbons anymore. People forget awful easy...."