Recognizing veterans in their own words on Memorial Day

NORTH CANAAN — Monday’s parade through the center of North Canaan was a true representation of what Memorial Day is all about. Military veterans and fire and ambulance volunteers — the people who protect this community’s freedom and safety — marched alongside some of those who benefit from their protection: Boy and Girl Scouts, Little League teams, 4-H groups.

Many of the veterans had spent hours before the parade and ceremony visiting more than a dozen cemeteries in North Canaan and Falls Village to honor veterans graveside.

Most moving is always the ceremony at the Doughboy Monument, where Navy veteran and event coordinator Thomas Gailes has in recent years interviewed a veteran. The interview is in lieu of a speech, which flies in the face of the modesty typically felt by veterans, and a desire not to dredge up often truly horrendous memories.

Richard “Dick� Phair is no exception.

Gailes introduced him in the context most know him: as the proprietor of “one of the greatest stores ever in Canaan,� the Rexall Pharmacy.

“He served in World War II, but really never told his story,� Gailes said. “He came home and basically, let it be.�

Phair’s draft number came up while he was still in high school. He got the notice on Jan. 1, 1943.

The Army deferred it until June, so he could graduate. He was allowed to enroll in the University of Maine, where he majored in engineering. Only four months later, his future took a drastic turn. He was pulled out of school, trained as an infantryman and shipped out to France, arriving a couple of weeks after D-Day.

Gailes joked that he didn’t get to travel on a luxury liner, but Phair said, that he did, in fact, sail the Atlantic on the cruise ship U.S.S Argentina.

“How long did it take you to see the front line? Gailes asked.

“About three hours,� Phair replied.

“How did it go?�

“You don’t want to know.�

It wasn’t long before Phair was hit in the shoulder by shrapnel. But there was no going home,  nor even a chance to convalesce.

“They patched you up, gave you a Purple Heart and sent you right back up to the front again.�

A week later, his legs were shattered by a German “burp gun,� a semiautomatic rifle. He was evacuated and took an arduous trip home: four plane rides, in a body cast. He wasn’t discharged until 1948.

“He spent five years in the Army, most of it wounded,� Gailes said. “He and [his wife] Mary later spent 60 blessed years in Canaan.�