CHELSEA — Veterans and their supporters gathered in the cafeteria of the Chelsea Public School for a Veterans Day breakfast on Tuesday.
John Parker, 76, has been volunteering for the event since it began about four years ago.
“Everybody needs a helping hand. Everybody needs someone to talk to,” said Parker, of Chelsea, who served in the Army from 1970 to 1972 at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington.
“They’ve served our country, so this is a way of paying back,” Parker said in the kitchen as volunteers prepared blueberry pancakes, bacon and hashbrowns for about three dozen attendees.
Parker is a board member of the Chelsea Recreation Committee, which organized the volunteer-run event alongside Chelsea Spotlight, the town’s quarterly newsletter.
Cindy Allen, 67, of Chelsea, started the breakfasts about four years ago because she felt like there was a generational divide.
“The vets don’t get enough recognition from our younger people,” she said Tuesday while taking an aside from running the serving line.
Allen comes from a military family, her father having been drafted into the Navy during the last year of the Korean War. Allen’s uncle and grandfather were also in the Navy, and her cousin did a tour in Afghanistan with the Vermont National Guard, having returned with PTSD.
The breakfast, Allen said, provides kids with exposure to veterans and how they have served their country.
“I think that by starting something like this, it opens up ideas for younger people,” she said.
Before the breakfast, Merritt O’Donnell, a 10-year-old student at Chelsea Public School, said that he was excited to be together with his grandfather, who served in Vietnam.
Grandfather Mike O’Donnell, a 76-year-old lifelong Tunbridge resident, said he appreciated the opportunity to inform youngsters such as his grandson about what veterans did for their country.
“I’m happy they’re honoring veterans today,” said Mike, whose father enlisted and two uncles were drafted into World War II. “I think the kids should know about the sacrifice some of the veterans went through.”
Some in Chelsea’s veteran community also appreciated the gathering as a way for the remaining veterans in area to gather.
“It’s a great thing that they’re doing,” said Darla Lyndes, 63, of Fairlee, who served the Vermont Air National Guard from 1983 to 1987. “It brings a shrinking community together.”
Beside her was her father Alan McCullough, 92, who served from 1953 to 1955 during the Korean War as an Army quarter master, shipping oil and jet fuel from France.
McCullough’s photo hangs on the veterans’ memorial wall at the Chelsea School, which was recently installed to commemorate those from the town who have served. Below his photo is that of his daughter, Lyndes.
