LEWISTON — George Stevens smiled warmly as he tried to describe the honor he felt by seeing his name in stone.

Then he considered the other names engraved nearby — his four brothers and three sons — and his smile softened. His voice cracked. In his hand, he held tight to a photo collage of all eight men.

“I can’t even start to say how that makes me feel,” said Stevens, 78.

On Thursday, the L/A Veterans Council unveiled the 20th tablet of names in Veterans Memorial Park at 2 Main St. The monument added 216 names of area veterans: Marines and Navy sailors, Army soldiers and Air Force airmen. They will join the names of 4,000 more local men and women who have served in the armed forces.

During a day of events, color guards marched, singers sang and veterans gathered for breakfast and lunch, eating ham and eggs at Lewiston High School and firehouse chili at American Legion Post 153 in New Auburn.

The more solemn event happened at the riverside park, where people ignored the wind and gathered outside to hear a few brief speeches and unveil an anchor, a battleship gun and the tablet with its names.

At last year’s ceremony, Stevens had been part of the crowd.

“So many people turned out,” he said. He was surprised by the enthusiasm of folks who came to honor all veterans. And he began thinking of his family.

All four of his brothers — Calvert, Bradford, Roy and Eugene — fought during World War II. His three sons all served too: David in the Air Force in the Vietnam era, Daniel in the Army in peacetime and Michael in the Army in Grenada. George, himself, served in Korea.

Together, they could fill a corner of a memorial stone, he figured.

“I think we are a patriotic family,” he said. He spent a year gathering discharge papers and photos, which he submitted to the L/A Veterans Council as proof of service. As he waited for a curtain to be lifted around the new stone, he waited with his brother Eugene, now 86, and two of his three sons, Daniel and David.

Other family members milled around, many delivering hugs to George Stevens, which he returned with a wide grin.

“I can only say it makes me so proud,” he said.

When the final speech ended, George playfully knelt on the ground as he tried to capture a photograph of the family names near the bottom of a long column. Daniel tried capturing the picture of his dad.

Meanwhile, David gazed at his name among so many.

Though he neither served in Vietnam nor did he experience the abuse so many servicemen faced in that era, he felt healed somehow by seeing his name in stone. It seemed to imply a kind of acceptance, he said.

He was also touched when a boy handed him a baggie with two cookies and the words, “Thank You.”

Narnia Krapovicky of Auburn made 36 packages of the cookies. Her children, Marcus, 12, Emelia, 10, and a friend, Abby Mitchell, also 10, handed them out to veterans in the crowd.

David Stevens gazed at his name in granite and tapped the “thank you” cookies in his pocket.

“It heals a lot,” he said.

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