Salisbury salutes on Memorial Day

SALISBURY — Throngs of Salisbury residents turned out in the long-awaited late May sunshine to honor fallen soldiers at the 2025 Memorial Day parade for a moment of solemn reflection before heading off to holiday cookouts to celebrate the unofficial start of summer.

The procession began shortly after 10 a.m. at Scoville Memorial Library with only one errant motorist pulling out ahead of the entourage before zooming eastward and out of sight. A soundtrack of applause and barking dogs mingled with the steady rhythm of Salisbury Central School’s marching band as the uniformed Williams-Parsons American Legion Post 70 members led the parade down Main Street.

Several town groups sent members to march in the parade, including the Redhawks hockey team, Salisbury Association, Salisbury Visiting Nurses Association, Volunteer Ambulance Service, Hotchkiss Veterans Club, and Housatonic Child Care Center.

The Salisbury Winter Sports Association’s miniature ski jump float made a reappearance, this year accompanied by an inflatable yeti.

As the march hung a left onto Route 41, spectators uprooted themselves from their viewing positions to follow and gather around the cemetery flagpole for a solemn ceremony helmed by legion member and selectman Christian Williams. The Rev. Heidi Truax offered the invocation, followed by local 4th grader Elsie Carr’s recital of the Gettysburg Address, whose friends rushed up gushing with congratulations after she finished.

Jerry Baldwin read the Roll of Honored Dead, remembering Salisbury servicemen killed in the First and Second World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam, after which the legion members performed a rifle salute. Lloyd Wallingford’s performance of “God Bless America” and the Salisbury Band’s rendition of the national anthem both sparked audience accompaniment, and Tom Key read the 23rd Psalm.

The Rev. John A. Nelson orated a benediction that impelled the audience to dwell on a more peaceful future with a quote from the prophet Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Williams concluded the ceremony by inviting the crowd back to town, where families enjoyed the weather on the White Hart lawn with ice cream sandwiches provided by the Salisbury Association.